In short, yes. The Great Lakes Economic Forum, which I attended yesterday, is, as you know, composed of nine American states that border on the Great Lakes, as well as Ontario and Quebec. This is a very useful forum, because we all have a lot of things in common.
As you point out, looming large in those interests that we have in common is how we make the trade corridors as efficient as possible. We're talking about a region that represents $6 trillion of economy and 100 million people. There are an awful lot of products that we want to get to the right place. The St. Lawrence Seaway is an essential element of that, and as you point out, there is rail, but we have under-exploited the maritime routing.
As you know, we in Canada are at the moment evaluating how we can make the St. Lawrence Seaway more efficient. It also, of course, goes through a region that you're very concerned about, the Niagara peninsula and the Welland Canal. We want to get more of the goods that are produced to markets in a quicker fashion. The people I met with from the Port of Cleveland and those nine American states, for example, want to get their products. Yes, they can use rail, but they also feel, as we do, that we can do better with respect to maritime traffic.
It is something that we are talking about and that we share in common.