Madam Chair, I see committees haven't changed much since I was in Ottawa, which is good. I think it's very important.
You mentioned the port of Halifax. The port of Halifax has been on a growth trajectory the last few years. Investing in the port is important to us so that we can handle the ultra ships. The ultra-class vessels are a very important piece of maintaining Halifax, but so is trying to make sure that the trucks that come out of the port are not clogging up the downtown, tearing up the roads, and creating all kinds of carbon that doesn't need to be taken up there. In short, it's a very important part of it for us.
As a municipality, we're in a position financially that we can invest. We're a little unusual in that we're a municipality with a debt of less than $250 million—this in a province with a debt of $15 billion or $16 billion. So we need help from the other two orders of government. We also can do some of this on our own with our partners, like our port and airport, which are both very important.
Thank you.