The federal government's decision to make public as quickly as possible any information its investigating agencies find on the sealing tragedy of the Acadien II is being applauded by the head of health services on the Îles de la Madeleine, Que.

"What happened to my neighbours? What happened?" asked Germain Chevarie.

That's the question Chevarie said he heard over and over when he opened up a crisis centre, and more than 80 people turned up desperate for information.

The icebreaker Sir William Alexander was towing the Acadien II early Saturday when the disabled fishing trawler overturned. Three sealers died and one is missing and presumed dead. Two survived.

Something like this changes lives forever, Chevarie said Monday.

He said there's no way to predict how people will react over the next few months.

But he thinks publicly releasing the results of the RCMP, Transportation Safety Board and Canadian Coast Guard investigations will help, which is what the government said it will do, rather than hold a public inquiry.

It's also encouraging for the man who had been calling for a public inquiry, Mayor Joel Arseneau.

"I would say sincere commitment to shedding light on all the circumstances of the event … this is what we need to focus on now.

"[That] was not necessarily [what happened at] the first press conference that was held Saturday. We felt like they were overly cautious, and there were a certain number of questions they could have answered right away. So we hope that they're going to be a little bit more straightforward this time around," Arseneau said.

A Canadian Coast Guard official was to arrive on the Îles de la Madeleine Tuesday to begin to respond to public concerns about the tragedy.

The Acadien II reported a steering malfunction while navigating in thick ice late Friday, 70 kilometres north of Cape Breton. The Sir William Alexander was called to tow the boat to Sydney, N.S.

A number of investigations have been launched into the accident.