At this time yesterday morning, I was sitting there looking out the window at the Pacific gateway, because I was in Vancouver. I actually had a discussion very much like that with three or four players, people who are doing analyses of the B.C. economy and the Pacific gateway.
The question I have is whether it's big enough in terms of adequacy. There's a huge debate about Prince Rupert and whether or not there's actually economic viability in expanding. But I think the really critical question is whether Vancouver and the Pacific gateway, flowing across the national economy, will be of sufficient scale to attract our fair share of the trade compared to Long Beach, compared to Portland, compared to the expansion in Mexican ports. So that's one level.
The other risk, however, is what happened with the information superhighway. Are we all going to make a massive investment and end up with double the capacity that we actually need on an ongoing basis? There's a real scope for some debate around that.
Fundamentally, if we're going to attract our fair share, we have to make sure the investment is adequate. Of course, the true investment being made there is far beyond what the federal government has announced. The provincial government has invested billions of dollars. The private sector will too. One of the things we would like to see happen, in fact, is extending it across and seeing how we can actually build the entire linkage for things like cross-shipment of containers and taking some of the capacity away from the port, to ensure that we can become a gateway across the entire North American economy.
But it's a great question to ask, and I guess our question mark at the end of the day is whether or not it's actually big enough. There's no doubt in our mind that the investment has to happen. Otherwise, trade will be diverted to Long Beach, Portland, and all the ports along the west coast, including the expansion in Panama. The Panama Canal expansion offers another alternative.