Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to the members of the committee for the invitation.
My project, that I have been following now for nearly 30 years, is the final spike to link Canada from sea to sea. It would have a subsea road tunnel under the Strait of Belle Isle. For those who have not been to this wonderful part of the world, we have the big land, Labrador, that is nine miles at its shortest point from the northern peninsula. The two points that would be connected are a little place called Yankee Point on the northern peninsula, and Point Amour, which you can see is the place of the second-highest lighthouse in eastern Canada.
My involvement in this project goes back many years. As a matter of fact, I didn't hear it, and neither did you, but in the fall of 1975 there was a big bang. There was a big explosion on the Labrador side near Point Amour when the government of the day made the first blast to start the tunnel and the process of building a subsea link to the island.
At that time it was premeditated by the urge to get power from Churchill Falls and bring it to the island of Newfoundland. As you know, we haven't been so successful at getting that power to Newfoundland, but certainly, that was what premeditated that move at the time. Shortly after a court decision, that project was abandoned.
I started this as a result of being a member of the legislature from that district, and of course, growing up only 10 miles from where the tunnel would actually join the mainland of Canada. My father actually got nine days of work on that project and told me all about his experiences. Over the last number of years, I have expended a lot of time studying this project. In the first terms that I was in the government, I was preoccupied with getting a link to Canada by road from the Strait of Belle Isle.
Our focus was on the Trans-Labrador Highway, and slowly but surely that took place. As of next year, we will have a fully paved highway from the Quebec border to the Labrador Straits and that part of the equation is done. There was never any need to build a link if you were going nowhere, so for the link to be built, it would have to cross the Strait of Belle Isle and link up to the rest of Canada.
I have spent a lot of time in Norway. There are experts there doing these tunnels. They've done 32, and number 33 is ready to open this fall. It's a tunnel that has quite similar numbers to what we are looking at. It is 14.3 kilometres in length under the sea, from Solbakk to Tau, in Norway. It's 1,000 feet below sea level. We have been there to meet the top people who are supervising this project. It started in 2013 and will be finished this fall.
I went there with two things in mind: to look at the cost and the question of geology, whether that was a prohibiting factor. I'm pleased to tell you the cost is something that I believe will be surprising, but quite realistic. The people of Labrador certainly know the benefits of doing this.
I won't take up any more of the time on the introduction, but I would certainly be happy to answer any questions on what this project may cost, how it might be financed, how it can be constructed and operated, and what benefits it would bring to the economic diversification of our province, but also to build our nation, Canada.