Tony, I think you nailed it better than I could have.
I'm familiar with St. George's church because I used to go to church there when I spent my summers in Canada at Bay Beach and Crystal Beach. Again, as you point out, this is a way of life. I can remember as a very young kid through to adulthood spending summers at Bay and Crystal Beach. We always were and are greeted as friends and neighbours. When people are living in Canada on a seasonal basis, we feel as though they are net contributors to the economy, and we welcome our Canadian friends into western New York in the same way.
There is a ski village 60 miles south of Buffalo called Ellicottville, and a lot of Canadian citizens own condominiums there. The way you know that is that during December, January, February and March, when you go into the town of Ellicottville, half the town has Ontario licence plates.
I think that is the great benefit, for both Canadians and Americans, of living in a border community. To promote that I think is in the best interests of both countries. There are 120 land ports of entry. The second-largest crossing between the United States and Canada is the Peace Bridge, and that connects Buffalo to Fort Erie in southern Ontario and through the whole province of Ontario. There are a lot of common interests, a lot of common history and a lot of common culture, and we want to preserve that and strengthen it moving forward.
I was talking to some of my folks today about how we're surrounded by friends and fish, not by hostility and not by instability. We're trading partners. We're friends. Our economies are deeply integrated. I think what we learned during the pandemic for 36 months.... My federal government did not handle that issue well, and the United States and Canada, the federal governments, should have been working more closely and coordinating the communication strategies and policies as they related to COVID. I just think that we should learn from that and bring our ties closer together.