Certainly not today, but it is an issue I very much would like to focus on. In fact, it's one that I discussed just last week when I met with Admiral Allen, who heads up the U.S. Coast Guard. They have a position similar to ours in terms of Loran-C.
First of all, it's a system that's no longer used by navigators. It's used now primarily as a fallback system for aviators. So from the perspective of the coast guard, it no longer fits with our mandate, and I very much would like not to be running a Loran-C system.
The issue will be whether it's kept as a fallback system in North America, and we have an agreement with the United States where we are participating as part of that network. The U.S. Coast Guard also feels that it shouldn't be part of their network. So once the decision is made on whether or not to keep it as a fallback system, we obviously would look accordingly at our options.
For me, it's a very important consideration, because our Loran-C sites, both in Newfoundland and in British Columbia, are in very poor shape. If we keep them, we would have to invest, we estimate, around $25 million to upgrade those facilities. Quite frankly, as commissioner of the coast guard, I'd have difficulty justifying that investment from our budget for an item that is not central to our mandate.