Thanks, Pino. I'd like to pick up from there.
As an inland producer at Terrace Bay Pulp, we do have other alternatives, I guess, but not satisfactory alternatives. One of them is marine transportation, and I wanted to talk for a few minutes about that.
We are on Lake Superior and do have the option of going out the seaway. I would point out that when we restarted that mill, one of the directions—and I think both the provincial and federal governments have strongly encouraged this direction—was to seek alternative export markets out of North America. Pursuing those alternative markets, primarily in Europe, means using a combination of either rail and sea—that is, marine traffic—or just marine traffic. The issue with marine traffic for us, of course, is that a return voyage between Terrace Bay on Lake Superior and Europe is about $136,000. It's a very, very expensive way of doing business, and the primary costs within that are things like pilotage fees. So the seaway is a very difficult and expensive option for us. It's something that needs to be looked at.
Again, we do rely very, very heavily on the railway, and I don't want to take away from that, but we do have marine transportation options as well. We also use trucks, which are problematic, in that their loads are relatively small, and to travel long distances with them is expensive.
I think the other point to understand is that with the rail lines, our competition doesn't face the same issues. Elsewhere in the world, railways do not behave in the fashion that Canadian railways do. In fact, they're happy to try to become as competitive as they possibly can and to provide a higher level of service at every opportunity. That's what we're competing with. Certainly our competitors are able to bring their products to market in a more cost-effective and more efficient manner at times than we are.
In closing, I would also point out that rail transportation, from an environmental perspective and a carbon perspective, is a more suitable method of transportation than using trucks. For every tonne of pulp that we bring to market, if we used the railway and/or marine transportation, it would be a more environmentally friendly way of doing business. We recognize this, and the forest products industry as a whole has been very, very responsible across the country in attempting to reduce greenhouse gases and to contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions. So the railways have a role to play as responsible organizations, and a role that we, as Canadians, have provided to them. I think they need to provide more competitive service, and instead of constantly increasing prices and constantly reducing services, they need to participate in a more reasonable fashion.
Thank you very much.