We see the regulations as being sufficient to offer the protection of heritage wrecks in Canada. Maybe I could go over some of the core elements of what's contemplated in the regulations.
There would obviously be a definition of “heritage wreck” or “designated heritage wreck”. The UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage has a time limit of 100 years. Anything that is older than 100 years would automatically be considered a heritage wreck under that convention. In Canada, in the work that we've done, we've proposed 50 years, so anything older than 50 years would be a designated heritage wreck.
The regulations, importantly, would exclude heritage wrecks from salvage provision, so as I referenced in my opening statement, it would exclude a salvor from getting an award. It would take away the incentive to go after a wreck and bring up artifacts or bring up parts of the hull, for example.
The regulations would also exclude heritage wrecks from disposition and destruction provisions, so it takes those parts of the legislation and sets them aside.
We would also define a number of activities that would require a permit. If somebody wanted to search for a ship, like they do, for example, in the territory of Nunavut, they would need an archeology permit to go look for underwater archeological sites.
We would also provide for interim protection zones, so if something has been discovered, and we wanted to protect the area around a ship where there might be a debris field, we could define that under regulation. We can also create prohibitions to restrict access and restrict activities directed at that heritage wreck.
There would be mandatory reporting of a found wreck to appropriate authorities, and we would have this inventory—a database of wrecks.
This is a fairly robust set of regulations that we think would cover and offer protection for heritage wrecks, including those that have human remains on them.