Recently, we're starting to hear Government of Canada departments recognize the value of dual-purpose infrastructure. I think the military gets it the best, but I can tell you that departments like Environment and Climate Change, ISED and Indigenous Services seem to not understand how to do it in practice.
The instant that something like a SMART cable can do climate change or environmental protection, provide telecommunication services for the communities, for mines and for defence, and develop a blue economy, it's as if the federal government's various departments start short-circuiting. They simply do not know how to take bits of different mandates and different pots of money and integrate them to support one smart investment that does lots of things.
We need to get the deputy ministers and the ministers much more aligned in understanding that they need to work together. This is why there is value in having strategies other than proclamations, visionary statements or just a pot of funding that we're supposed to apply for but that may not be funding the smartest or most strategic investments that are good for dual purpose and multiple users.