Secondly, general infrastructure--which is one of our main mandates--is important. It is important to the municipalities. I don't know what the steering committee talked about in terms of establishing work on that, but we need to have a good discussion about that.
The third aspect relating to this motion is the issue of the gateways. As critic for the Pacific gateway, I am particularly interested in addressing what the infrastructure needs are so that we can assess that.
With the Asia-Pacific--and I would refer to that again specifically--we know that within 10 to 15 years China will either be the number one economy or tied for the number one economy in the world. We know that the opportunity for Canada lies in tapping that market--whether it is India, China, Korea, or Japan--through the Pacific gateway. We know that the U.S. is building up its ports to take advantage of that. We know that Shanghai has quadrupled the size of its ports to deal with its growing business, so the capacity is going to be there. If we don't rise to the occasion, they will bypass us.
There's already talk about another kind of canal to parallel the Panama Canal. There are South American ports. We can't afford to be left behind, so I'm interested in that.
I realize that's trade, but it's also the issue of what we're talking about: the transport provided for that, making sure we've got the adequate rail links, and the provision for trucking and road services that are needed to serve that.
The other aspect, of course, is airports and the ability to handle tourism, and the significance, to some degree, of not yet having achieved the approved destination status with China, which impacts on the volumes that would come through the airport.