Of course, this is part, as you mentioned earlier.... You were bang on with respect to the first part of your answers to questions about supply chains and multimodal networks. I don't want to be repetitive in that regard. However, the attachment to road investments obviously touches many ministries: public safety, environment, tourism, infrastructure. I do know first-hand how hard you're working with those other ministers to ensure that those networks are very robust.
I want to focus on the economy.
As you know, I just got back from Washington with a member of the Conservative Party, as well as a member of the NDP. Together, we had some very good discussions with members of Congress, both on the House side and the Senate side, about integrating supply chains and, with regard to your earlier comments, how important that is domestically.
However, in our travels to Washington, and we recognized that economic leaders from both countries are in fact prioritizing proximity-based hubs that concentrate production facilities and sales within the same region to streamline logistics, as well as to improve inventory management and accelerate response to market demand, which is what I want to zero in on.
With that said, how important is it to you and to the ministry to participate domestically and—equally as important—binationally in capital investments to ensure that transportation capacity needed within these proximity-based hubs is robust, as well as to add to the overall supply chains to ensure binational fluidity, strengthening our binational economic relationship?