Thank you very much.
We actually wrote a brief about three weeks after the election to give free advice to the new majority government, and it was a fairly comprehensive brief. We covered macro policy, which we're talking about today--that is, fiscal policy and the form of that--but also some of the micro adjustments required. I say this because our research program at the Conference Board is fully aligned around boosting Canada's real potential, raising productivity and prosperity for the country. It's a fairly long list. It's things like expanding our horizons when it comes to free trade and entering free trade negotiations with other parts of the world. We've made great progress in Latin America and we're now talking to India and the European Union. I'd like to see our being part of the trans-Pacific partnership, for example. Unfortunately, we have this thing called supply management that precludes our sitting at the table. That's the kind of barrier that's actually preventing Canada from seizing its full potential when it comes to free trade.
We believe we're severely under-invested as a country in infrastructure. We haven't done the numbers, but others have, including engineers and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and I think their number going back five years was of a deficit of about $130 billion in terms of infrastructure investment. That tells me there is huge scope for realigning government spending priorities and making sure we're making adequate investments in roads, ports, and bridges to ensure that the Montreal economy, for example, works well. Could you imagine if the Champlain Bridge actually broke and you could not have commerce between the south shore and downtown Montreal? That would be a huge loss to Montreal's GDP and to Canada's GDP.
So with things like that, reform is possible on many fronts. Maybe I can share the brief with you and we can have discussion about that in detail. It's on our website, by the way, but I will share it, perhaps with the clerk to share with the committee.