Okay, I can go a bit slower.
We stepped into another area when the federal government was divesting itself of the local grain elevator on Lake Erie. The city stepped in to acquire it, and entered into a lease agreement with an operator in that case, too.
Sometimes it feels like we're going it alone down here. In the Niagara area and Port Colborne, in particular, upper levels of government have not kept pace with our efforts. Highway connectivity is woefully inadequate in Port Colborne, and the Welland Canal has been poorly administered from the perspective of maintaining the existing infrastructure and unlocking seaway-held lands to provide economic development opportunities in the city.
Port Colborne is connected to its neighbouring municipalities, Wainfleet, Welland and Fort Erie, by two-lane roads. The provincial Highway 406 terminates several kilometres north of the city. Access to the greater Toronto and Hamilton area is through the 406 and the Queen Elizabeth Way. This highway network is the subject of significant volumes of traffic, which is near gridlock during rush periods, and there is no redundancy in the form of alternate routes in the event of closures. For example, just this past Thursday, the Queen Elizabeth Way was closed in both directions for several hours due to an accident and downed power lines. The bottleneck is insurmountable for the flow of goods and people.
However, there is a solution. The previously planned mid-peninsula corridor would connect the Queen Elizabeth Way between Fort Erie and Niagara Falls, near the border with the United States, to Highways 403, 401 and 402 in western Ontario. It would also provide a redundant link to the greater Toronto and Hamilton area, mirroring the Queen Elizabeth Way. The project must proceed to connect Niagara, its industries and its border crossings to the national supply chain. I implore the federal government to join with the province in establishing this important connection for the benefit of the entire country.
On the issue of the seaway, one of the most important transportation and economic development assets in Niagara is the Welland Canal. The canal is administered by the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corporation. Neglected maintenance and lack of capital improvements have had a direct impact on economic development in Port Colborne. In particular, south of Lock 8, near the mouth of the canal, are a series of wharves that have been undermined due to deteriorating conditions of the cribbing below the water surface. These wharves represent prime canal-side industrial land that could easily be leased and contribute to employment and industry in the city. Furthermore, near the same area, there are tie-up walls along the canal that have been allowed to fill in to depths that are too shallow to accommodate many types of vessels, including Great Lakes cruise ships that could bring tourists to the city's downtown core.
In addition to the lack of maintenance of the Welland Canal, there is also an economic development concern with a large amount of land that is owned by the seaway in Niagara in the form of a buffer along the canal. In the past, the seaway has been reluctant to encourage development on these industrial lands. There is currently a shortage of industrial land in Port Colborne and in Niagara as a whole, yet the municipalities in Niagara stand on the sidelines looking at the potential of the seaway's holdings unable to act to develop these as employment lands.
It is imperative for the prosperity of Port Colborne and the Niagara region that the seaway and the federal government make renewed investments in the Welland Canal infrastructure and undertake to partner with municipalities to unlock employment lands along the length of the Welland Canal. This investment will open up employment lands in Niagara and create multimodal transportation assets to form a trade corridor. This in turn will establish fluidity in the movement of goods, connecting the city and region to the national supply chain.
Once again, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.
The City of Port Colborne and the region of Niagara are ready to sit at the table to chart a path forward for our shared prosperity.