Mr. Chair, the government has defined a very clear plan in terms of investing in Canada with multiple elements of infrastructure programming. One of particular importance to the northern and remote communities is the national trade corridors fund, which has a very clear plan and very clear objectives in terms of expanding the capacity of the transportation systems in Canada to meet the mobility needs of Canadians and to enable economic growth in the country and expansion of the middle class.
The operating strategy of these plans is to identify the highest-priority infrastructure projects and to allocate resources where the significant but ultimately defined federal dollars will generate the largest increase in infrastructure through leveraging partnerships. Having run transportation infrastructure programs for some time, we made the assessment that a unilateral federal determination of where projects go without partnerships and without engaging the priorities of partners would make for a relatively ineffective infrastructure program.