Thank you very much.
It's a great discussion. We've been talking about American politics, Canadian politics and other comparisons. I've been 23 years in politics, with a majority of that time spent at the municipal level, so I understand when Mr. Tully or my friend from Niagara is talking about bidding on contracts and municipal processes and whatnot. One thing that's important to clarify is that a lot of the difference between the American and Canadian systems is when you talk about a buy local program—let's call it a buy local program, namely, buy America versus buy Canada—the vast majority of infrastructure programs are actually under the purview of the provincial and territorial governments where they exist.
In our federated system—I also studied political science at university in Michigan—it's quite different. Our federal government, through our historic infrastructure funding programs, transfers said dollars to the provinces and territories. The provinces then reach agreements with municipalities, etc., and it is implemented locally.
The reason I know this, too, is that I come from Sault Ste. Marie, where we make a whole bunch of steel. I'm always very interested to see the maximum amount of steel in the infrastructure program. In fact, I had a private member's motion I put forward on the floor to do this, and in doing so, I learned a whole bunch more. In fact, a vast majority of infrastructure programs are under provincial or territorial jurisdiction, so we need to work closely with our Ontario or Alberta or Northwest Territories counterparts to enact those provisions to see those local benefits. You would need to see a buy Ontario campaign for Ontario infrastructure programming. I know the previous Liberal government had put forward such a program, but it was undone by this current Ford government.
That is one of the issues at hand here. This is an important discussion to have, but this is a big difference between our governments. Sure, there is still federal programming, including around defence. In fact, Algoma Steel was successful in garnering a federal contract—a buy Canada program, if you will. Around things related to security, certain provisions can be instructed by the minister to said businesses involved in the contract process. They can't influence and say that Algoma Steel or Stelco or this engineering firm gets it, but they can say that special provisions, under national security advice, will be garnered towards a Canadian company.
Algoma Steel was...not lucky, but successful. The definition of luck is when planning meets opportunity. I remember hearing that once. They were successful in garnering the royal shipbuilding program for the current program. That's going to mean jobs. That's going to mean a whole bunch of engineers. Canadian engineers in Sault Ste. Marie are hard at work figuring out the—