Transport committee  This is an excellent question. Right now, worker shortages are definitely an issue, but we need to differentiate between the shortages that exist. We have two different classes of employees on vessels: licensed and unlicensed. Licensed employees include officers and engineers, and that's really where we find the shortage.

Transport committee  Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the member for the question. I'm a workers' representative, but I think I can speak a little on behalf the Canadian shipping companies. I'm sure they would allow me to do so. From our perspective, all of the Canadian shipping companies are very interested in taking up this work.

Transport committee  I guess I need to differentiate between the domestic workforce and the international workforce, because the worst conditions were endured by international seafarers engaged in global shipping. I'm an elected representative with the International Transport Workers' Federation based in London, which has an inspectorate around the world that inspects foreign-flag ships when they come into various ports.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. I'll try to be very quick. I know that a lot of investment, and talk about investment, is happening with regard to low-flashpoint fuel, which is using ammonia, LNG and hydrogen as alternative fuel sources because they are lower-emissions fuels. Further investment in that, further study and research, and allowing ships to trial some of these different fuels would be very helpful.

Transport committee  Thank you, Chair, and, through you, thank you to the member. I think it's an excellent question. Thank you, Mr. Badawey. As you know, the SIU has a very large presence in the Niagara region, so we are very interested in expanding the infrastructure investment along the Welland Canal in particular and in what can be done with some of the lands that our government owned in that area.

Transport committee  Thank you, Chair and committee members, for taking the time to hear from us today. My name is Chris Given and I'm the director of government relations for the Seafarers' International Union of Canada. The SIU represents thousands of Canadian and permanent-resident seafarers working on board all types of Canadian-flagged vessels operating from coast to coast to coast.

Transport committee  Sure. Thank you. This is good timing. Tomorrow there is going to be a study released by Seafarers' Rights International, which is a London, U.K.-based organization. They were commissioned by the ITF to do an independent study on cabotage laws in the world. What they found is that, out of 140 UN nations, there are currently 91 that have cabotage regulations.