The ship is Coast Guard - Federal government - Dollar costs are partially recovered from the private ships ( anyone using icebreaker assistance) and the taxpayers. The Lakers move billions $$ in cargo up and down the lakes (Highway H2O) as it were. The "expense" of the ship keeps the cargo guys going and thus keeps the people ashore working to fill the ships and move the stuff all over. Salt from the Goderich mines and lots of raw materials from Alberta and Manitoba.
For you guys out in the parries we help the ships move tons and tons of grain, lumber, oil, iron ore, cement, asphalt, steel products etc and it keeps the economy going. Big time grain is shipped from Thunder Bay through the water way system and off to other countries. We are pretty "cheap" to run looking at the big picture - say 4 million for a year and we escort about a billion $ in commercial goods in the winter. We maintain the entire water way system from Thunder Bay to St Catherines including all the light houses, buoys and Search and Rescue. We are ice breaking roughly 60% of the time and its a big part of our function from December to the end of March/mid April. One of those Lakers can carry something like 1800 transport trucks full of cargo