Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen.
Thank you for having me once again.
This time I hope my remarks, which concern the dynamic use of Canada's territory, will lead to more discussion between us.
I am the mayor of Sept-Îles, an eastern Quebec city located near the centre of the province, approximately 1,000 kilometers from Montreal on one side and 1,000 kilometers from Blanc-Sablon on the other. Blanc-Sablon is near the home of my friend, Mr. Parsons, who just spoke.
Allow me to explain why I want to talk to you about dynamic use. There are many villages and towns between my home and Mr. Parsons', and their populations are slowly but surely declining. And you can understand why. Just imagine, it's 2021, and highway 138, the only road on the North Shore, still isn't finished. It's been promised to us for decades. Young people in those towns may be waiting for their yearly outing, but the transportation just isn't there. Do you think these young people, who are going away to study somewhere else, want to return to their villages? The answer, of course, is no. Those villages are increasingly isolated and in decline. Our infrastructure needs to be upgraded so we can use the territory in a dynamic rather than resilient manner, the way it is now, as we wait for our villages to shut down. How can we claim that a territory, this big, beautiful territory, that we're using in a resilient manner, is legitimate? I imagine the same is true in the so-called more remote areas across Canada.
The government is starting to consider establishing an economic corridor between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. For a long time, the talk was solely about isolated communities, and it was understood that wasn't good enough. Now the whole economic dynamic has been added to the picture. Everyone hopes the road is completed someday. We hope a government will have the vision to complete it, to open the economic corridor so people can come and go, which may encourage them to stay in their towns.
There's also talk about aviation. I think the territory is completely disorganized, and aviation in Quebec, generally speaking, is as well. Current ticket prices are prohibitive, and an enormous amount of work is being done to establish an aviation network. The Institut de recherche en économie contemporaine, IRÉC, conducted a study on the subject and concluded that we had to be innovative, that we had to take off our blinders and try to look at the situation from a different angle. That's more or less the message I wanted to convey to you today, that we should try to consider the dynamic use of our territory in a new way. According to the study findings, we should look to the cooperatives, where the people acquire ownership of the modes of transportation and therefore work to preserve them.
As you can see, the challenges are considerable. While we neglect these territories everywhere, we invest billions and billions of dollars to expand road networks in the major cities. I think that's counterproductive, particularly in view of the fight against climate change. As motor vehicle fleets significantly expand, we can't even complete a single road to the other side of our region, where our natural resources are exploited.
My message for you today is that we must not wait for crises like the current pandemic to happen. The way to restart the economy in times of crisis is often to focus on infrastructure. So let's at least meet the needs of the most remote communities.
Sept-Îles is a regional hub with a population of approximately 26,000 inhabitants. If none of the towns east of that hub are revitalized, we will all suffer the consequences. Sept-Îles is a hub, but it receives less and less support. Consequently, we need a vision.
I hope that, in the course of your proceedings, you will adopt a vision for the development of the Canadian territory as a whole because I think we must at least meet essential transportation needs, particularly in air and ground transportation. I hope you will pay attention to that.
There's also the communications component, which is increasingly under discussion. We obviously have to improve high-speed Internet access. Efforts are being made to do so, which will enable people to work remotely from virtually anywhere. We also have to make it easier for people to come and go so they no longer feel isolated, even if they live in very remote places.
That's my essential message today. I hope we can discuss it.
Thank you for your attention.