I think way too much is made of whether infrastructure projects happen in specific ridings or not. What I'm consumed with is making sure that the infrastructure projects announced are ones that are needed, that are bought into by municipalities, if possible, and provinces for sure, so that they're not politically interfered with.
The project you've described is a significant amount of money in a riding. But it's a riding where, as you've described, people come to work from all across this country. It's very important that infrastructure is kept up for the benefit of the country. I believe Fort McMurray is around 5% of GDP, or a little over. That's a pretty significant amount of GDP from one little area.
Not only that, you talked about the Windsor area and the Windsor corridor. You're talking potentially $1 billion of trade a day going across that border at peak times. That's significant. Minister Baird and I were able to talk to Secretary LaHood with regard to making sure that we do what we can to be able to move traffic along cross-border as well.
This has nothing to do with politics, right, left, or anywhere in between. This is about building Canada to be able to compete in the 21st century. Nobody likes to go into debt, but if we do it right, we will be able to come out of this, when the economy turns around, much stronger, much better, more able to compete internationally. In my view, that's the way to succeed into the 21st century.