Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome to our committee, Minister Garneau. Thank you for being here today.
Mr. Garneau, I understand that you have just returned from the Great Lakes Economic Forum in Cleveland, Ohio, in your role not only as a minister but as chair of the Cabinet Committee on Canada-U.S. Relations, Trade Diversification and Internal Trade.
The question, and in particular as it relates to today's discussion in respect to the budget, is on how there continue to be investments to strengthen trade corridors domestically here in Canada. Are you continuing to have discussions with our U.S. counterparts to integrate and communicate those domestic trade corridor investments, and also, with that being done and completed, to ensure fluidity and hopefully see that they're also integrating a lot of their trade corridor investments so that movement does flow over the border in a seamless fashion, whether it be by road, by the Great Lakes, by air or by rail?
The reason I ask is that in our neck of the woods in Niagara, we see a lot of trade leaving our region and going into the States. Equally as important, if not more important, is that a lot of that trade is going through or coming from Niagara over the border and then going into, for example, the Port of New York, Staten Island, Manhattan or other ports, and then going international.
Therefore, there's the need to have that fluidity, especially when you're going over the border, whether it is road, rail, water or air. Are those discussions happening?