It's obvious that the federal government will have to provide money. It will also have to help us with permits for private shipowners crossing the river. We have no control over these cable ferries that have been on the Richelieu River for years. As a municipality, we should have the right to impose obligations on these private operators. It doesn't matter how good a project we present—a system that thaws the ice, or the little ice that's left—if these shipowners don't want to sign up to it, it's going to be problematic. We should have a say.
In my opinion, the most beautiful thing was the ice bridge. It was as if the two banks of the river came together to create an entirely different dynamic during the freezing period. That's now lost. The repercussions aren't just economic, it's deeper than that. There's the social aspect. The people of Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu and Saint-Denis-sur-Richelieu have worked together for centuries. With the disappearance of the ice bridge, families see each other less.