For the benefit of the members of the committee and people watching, this isn't just a northerner problem. I noted in the latest data on Transport Canada's website that there are 245 kilometres of our national highway system in the province of Quebec that are unpaved and there are 332 kilometres of our national highway system in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador that are unpaved. Clearly there's a lot of work that needs to be done in connecting northern and remote communities to infrastructure.
Our lack of east-west and north-south infrastructure within our own country is increasingly revealing the vulnerabilities of our national economy in light of what's been happening with the threats coming from our largest trading partner and ally, so I fully support your call for more infrastructure for the north, particularly paved highways. That's really important. The modern economy runs on transport trucks and intermodal cargo containers. I think part of the reason things are so expensive in the north is that we can't get product there very easily, and often, particularly in the case of Nunavut, it has to go by plane. That explains in part why things are so terribly expensive up north.
This is a welcome debate that we're going to have here, so I appreciate your feedback on that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.