Here are a couple of examples.
We've been working very closely now, in the last several weeks, with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. As we understand it, they have a parallel process. They're drawing maps, and we are drawing maps. We are drawing maps of where the oil and gas should be, and they're drawing maps of where oceans need to be protected.
We just get together now, and we meet. We tell them that we know about where all the treasure is buried along our eastern coast. We know where all the highly prospective areas are, and we also know where maybe oil and gas opportunities don't exist.
They also have a sliding scale from the very sensitive areas all the way to the sort of benign areas, so we collaborate. We show them our maps, they show us their maps, and we just overlay the maps. We just work together to make sure that we protect as much of Canada's offshore as we can and also see to it that, on average, we make available some of the most prospective acreage. In this case, fisheries interests and oil and gas interests can cohabit, as they have been doing in Newfoundland and Labrador now for some 25 years or so.
That's an example of where our dataset can illuminate the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' initiatives. That wouldn't happen if the data were private. It's only because we're a subnational government, with the ability and the interests we have that are common to us and Canada, that we'll make our data set available to DFO and will try to avoid one another in terms of where licences go for offshore drilling and where marine protected areas are. That's number one.
Number two is that the method by which we collect our data is multi-client. Rather than have 14 companies out with their own seismic vessels shooting their own seismic packages, as they would have done in the past, we do it now for everyone. That eliminates a number of interactions.
Finally, we look at all sorts of data. We look at pore pressures, biostratigraphy, and all the below-ground risks that you need to be aware of if you're drilling a well so that you are prepared for a tricky well, a well that you need to be wary of and for which you will need extra equipment. We gladly and freely provide all this safety-related geoscience data—weather data, wave, wind, fog, visibility—to lower the risks to both people and the environment.
Again, though, it's because it's a national database. It's in our interests. We basically drop it from low-flying aircraft and have no issues with it. That's not necessarily going to be the case if it is only done and held by private sector interests.