Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to committee members for allowing me to join these proceedings.
Thank you, Minister, and the hard-working public servants who support you.
I know that the good people of Pontiac, hundreds of whom are evacuated right now, many of whom are supporting family members, community members who are in the direst of straits, are thinking about the immediate term, about cleaning up and getting their house back to normal.
The conversations have already started around what we can do to make sure that next year or the year after if it happens again we won't be in a situation where we can't pick up our phone and call our mayor or our neighbour and get a sandbag or get some clean water or...you can imagine the scenario. This conversation has been repeated several times, and I appreciate that we can't change the lack of action, lack of investment from previous governments and the private sector overnight. It takes time.
What confidence can we give rural Canada that when it comes to ensuring that critical infrastructure is available, particularly cellphone infrastructure in those places where there isn't access, the investments we're making are going to help us to build that up?