Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us today on this important study.
I'm going to go to Mayor Hendriksen. I will talk a bit about what we've learned from yesterday's budget. It proposes to spend $1 billion over four years, starting this year, with Transport Canada creating an Arctic infrastructure fund. This will invest in major transportation projects. I know you talked a bit about that in your opening statements.
We heard a lot about the dual-use applications for civilian and military use, including airports, seaports, all-season roads and highways. If you can speak a bit to that.... As a representative of Richmond, British Columbia, I would note that major investments have been made that come out of some of the defence capabilities, everything from the Poseidon aircraft, which also has Arctic capabilities, to icebreakers in our Seaspan shipyards in Vancouver and a marine industry that's very important to our province of British Columbia, and of course this country. The SkyGuardian drone also has Arctic capabilities. It's something that's being assembled in partnership with MDA Space, which has geospatial intelligence capabilities, a lot of the AI pieces that Ms. Intson spoke about.
Taking all of those investments that you've heard about plus the recent ones that have been announced, as representatives of Yellowknife, could you talk about specific projects that you think will be helpful to the region and other infrastructure projects you might want to see up there?