Thanks for being here. I know that you represent constituents for whom this is a very important and live issue, so I'm really glad that you're with us.
It is a great question. The national shipbuilding strategy, which various governments have been working at for a long time, is really bearing fruit, and this is a really good thing. Canada has built up shipbuilding capacity. This is in our strategic and national economic interest.
What we need to do now is work very hard to connect our shipbuilders with the sectors that are under threat—steel, aluminum, softwood lumber—and we need to connect them with the procurement decisions of Canadian entities: the federal government, the provincial government and private sector entities. We need to have that strategic plan with everyone, including labour, at the table. That's why I'm really excited about this meeting that we're organizing, with shipbuilders, all of the ferry operators—private and public—the federal government, the provinces, labour, steel and aluminum. We're going to sit down and look at, “What are the order books? What kinds of ferries do we need? Who needs ferries? Who is able to build them, and are we able to use Canadian steel and aluminum in that construction?” Mr. McCarthy, the CEO of Seaspan, is very enthusiastic about that conversation. I am too.
This is the moment when we really, in a significant way, need to rewire the Canadian economy. I have been a believer in reciprocal procurement for a long time. That's why I first published an intention to develop that policy in the 2021 budget and followed through with a policy that was published in 2023. As transport minister, I am totally committed to acting on it.