Definitely when we're talking about bulk carriers, they're going to offshore markets. There's no legal requirement for them to be registered in Canada. They're in international trade. It's not a coastal Canadian operation that requires Canadian-crewed vessels, so you could very well be dealing with foreign vessels.
I didn't get down into the weeds about the difference between the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage, the northern sea route, but I see a lot of people suggesting that the northern sea route is shorter and therefore it would logically seem more attractive. But it's much more expensive because it's run like the Panama Canal. There's a tariff for using it. And with that tariff come navigation aids, and potential icebreaker support when you require it. On the Canadian side, we don't have that kind of a cost of using a sea route like that. I'd suggest that at some point we'd better have a user fee of some sort or everybody will maybe try to come and use the Northwest Passage for free.
There's an aspect there that I don't think has been played out completely in terms of addressing the trade-off. The fact that there's a tariff on the Russian side and we don't have one here plays to potential issues you're talking about that could happen with a number of vessels, especially recreational vessels and vessels that could slip under the radar in terms of search and rescue and potential spills and that sort of thing.
At some point I would think we would have to have the same sort of user pay, or some approach towards the users helping to finance a system that is just now coming into play in the Arctic. The Russians are way ahead of us in terms of figuring out how to manage that and how to pay for it.