I'd just like to hammer home how important this bridge is to the Canadian economy.
As the members across might know, according to the global competitivity index, Canada has slipped four places, from ninth place to thirteenth. Now, one of the key factors in determining the global competitivity of the economy is state-of-the-art infrastructure. At the present time, as I think all members here will recognize, Montreal is undergoing extreme difficulties with its infrastructure that was built in the 1960s. The federal government's responsibility in that network of infrastructure is the Champlain Bridge.
My colleague stated that the Island of Montreal, through traffic bottle-ups, loses $2.1 billion in productivity every year. I think everyone in this room wants to promote a good, healthy economy, wants to increase Canada's competitivity, and wants to assure that we'll again get into the top ten global competitors in terms of our economy. The Champlain Bridge is part and parcel of making that a reality. In fact, it's an important link to eastern Canada and it's an important link for international trade to the United States.
If our priority is jobs and the economy, the purchase price that's been quoted for this bridge--$1.1 billion, I believe--is just a small investment in the health of our economy in the future. I hope we can all agree that making plans to replace the bridge from today will be an important message to our global partners in the economy that Canada is serious about improving its infrastructure, adding public transit to its cities so that it functions more efficiently.
The Champlain Bridge and our commitment to replacing the Champlain Bridge will play a key factor in improving Canada's productivity, its global competitiveness, and the Canadian economy in general. It will strengthen our international trade ties with the United States and with the provinces in eastern Canada. If we fail to replace it as soon as possible, it will create structural problems in our economy down the line in the next couple of years.
We too want to fix the roof while it's still sunny--and clouds are on the horizon.
I hope the members across will recognize that making a commitment to this bridge isn't about Quebec versus the rest of Canada. It's not about the city of Montreal versus the other cities in the country. It's really about the Canadian economy and helping the Canadian economy advance and become stronger, more productive, more competitive.
That's why we're putting forward this motion, so that we can strengthen Canadians' economy.