Thank you, Mr. Naqvi.
Through you Chair, I often like to refer to these sorts of changes in streets as openings, rather than closures.
I know I said closure, but we're really opening it to people. Having Wellington Street open to people would provide unique opportunities for extensive programming in front of the Parliament Buildings. Just last week we received a request for a ball hockey tournament with temporary rinks on Wellington for a few days this summer. Having chairs and the space in the public realm is always going to benefit residents, people who work downtown such as yourselves, and visitors. It just makes for a much better space.
I'll just end that by saying that when we built our light rail system, we removed much of our transit on Albert and Slater, which are streets three and four blocks to the south of Wellington. With the City of Gatineau investing in its transit with LRT into the city, we can see a further reduction in buses running on Albert and Slater. That has opened up a tremendous amount of capacity for wider sidewalks, cycling lanes and the movement of cars from Wellington onto those two streets that run east and west right through the downtown.