Thank you, Joyce.
Thank you to the committee for allowing us to be here today.
I'm Nancy Phillips and I'm the executive director of the Halifax Gateway Council.
From a strategic perspective, the Halifax Gateway Council is in its last year of its second five-year strategy, so we've been in existence for 10 years. We'll be doing a new strategy this year. Our strategy is owned and managed by the board of directors.
What I want to do is share with you our identified key priorities that as a gateway we have identified as being key to growing our selective transportation sector and the alignment we see with the early identified impacts of CETA.
Our first priority that we have identified as a community is the growth and development of the Halifax Logistics Park. I understand you are going to be doing a port tour on Wednesday morning, so you're going to see first-hand the Logistics Park and what it means to our stakeholders.
The growth of the Halifax Logistics Park is important because it's a value-added asset and it provides another reason for cargo owners and shippers to move their goods through the Halifax gateway. It is attractive to companies in the field of temperature-controlled warehousing, so important to the seafood, blueberries, and all the other export cargo that we have from this region, and to the general transloading and distribution of goods and services in the retail sector.
The gateway is strategically located next to 100-series highways and within easy access and commute of the central business district. It's 15 minutes to the Ceres container terminal, 15 minutes to Halterm, 15 minutes to the CN Halifax intermodal terminal, and 15 minutes to the Irving Shipbuilding $25 billion national shipbuilding procurement project. It's also just about 20 minutes from the Halifax Stanfield International Airport.
This is a critical piece of infrastructure which, with support, can increase trading opportunities from CETA. We would expect demand for this asset to increase as a result of Canada's trade agreement.
Priority number two for the Halifax Gateway Council is our air route development program. Increased airlift to Europe is critical to Nova Scotia's exporters and for the new import opportunities that will arise as a result of the trade agreement. We are Canada's closest gateway to Europe and as demand for products increases as the result of the elimination of tariffs, new airlifts from this region will become even more critical. Currently, a wealth of high-value, high-yield export cargo is being trucked to the U.S. for airlift from this community. We need to maximize opportunities through our gateway for the benefit of Canada and our local export community.
Better air access will also support the need for labour as we develop and work on the $115 billion in megaprojects that are currently under way in Atlantic Canada.
This brings me to our third and final priority. That is to maximize the $115 billion in megaprojects in Atlantic Canada. I've given to Paul a copy of our map, which he'll distribute when you're back in Ottawa. It outlines all the megaprojects that are under way and early identified opportunities for shipping.
Halifax is the natural receptacle and transshipment point for many of the projects in Atlantic Canada, including energy, mining, and shipbuilding.
In closing, I would like to say that Europe is our second largest trading partner. Opening up a market of over 500 million consumers will have a major impact on Atlantic Canada, Halifax, and the Halifax gateway. Lower tariffs on goods for agrifood, seafood, forestry, and reduced non-tariff barriers on services will benefit this region. In the next two to three years, we need to position ourselves to capitalize on these opportunities.
Thank you.