Sure. In terms of vessels entering Canada, most of the international seismic contractors are foreign. What happens basically is that an oil company will look at a seismic program in an area. They have to go out and find the most competent contractor to do the work. They define the technical requirements of the vessels and the technology to be used.
Regulations under the Coasting Trade Act were designed to regulate the transportation of goods on Canadian vessels in particular and to provide business security for Canadian shipowners and shipbuilders. What has happened is that inadvertently these regulations impact seismic vessels as well.
The basic problem is that after an oil company decides on a piece of work, finds the best contractor internationally, and goes to the Canadian Transportation Agency to get an exemption to bring that vessel into Canada and do the work, under the CTA regulations any Canadian shipowner can protest. That basically causes somewhat of a delay. We've seen examples of protests that could only be described as frivolous causing significant delays in the approval of programs.
We had a recent example this past summer with a seismic program that was to take place in Labrador and off the southwest coast of Newfoundland. A Canadian company has a vessel laid up in Louisiana, “laid up” being a term used by classification societies to indicate that the vessel needs remedial work before it can take to sea. The Canadian company doesn't have a sea-ready vessel and is unable to meet the technology requirements of the particular oil company in this case, but yet can frustrate the process by virtue of this ability to protest under the CTA.
In 2009 the Canadian Transportation Agency had a consultation. NOIA and a number of other organizations did ask for an exemption or for other ways to reduce this problem. The review was completed, and there was no solution found. Our concern--