Liberal MP Mike Savage, who represents the Nova Scotia riding of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour, got an e-mail from one his constitutents today. The correspondent’s spouse is serving on HMCS Toronto, which is steaming for its home port of Halifax right now after a mission with NATO's Standing NATO Maritime Group 1 (SNMG1), where Toronto and her crew helped with a search–and-rescue operation of nine missing Yemeni soldiers after a volcanic eruption on Jabal al-Tair island, about 140 kilometres off the coast of Yemen in the Red Sea. Toronto rescued one man and located the bodies of two more.
The correspondent’s spouse said that the ship’s captain, Commander Stephen Virgin, has advised the crew that Toronto will be two days late arriving in Toronto for no other reason that he has been ordered to drive slow and save gas.
The correspondent who wrote Savage and who hasn’t seen his or her spouse since July 1, is upset at the penny-pinching ways of the admirals who are delaying the reunion of families so that Canadian taxpayers can save a few thousand dollars.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Chief of Defence Staff Rick Hillier, and new defence deputy minister Robert Fonberg will appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence in about 40 minutes to go over the department’s budget for the year. The Navy’s chronic shortage of money to buy basic things like fuel may come up here.