Thank you very much, Ms. Nguyen, and congratulations on your pretty recent election.
You and I were in your riding together this morning. It is indeed a place where transport infrastructure is important. This may be an opportunity for me to offer a quick shout-out to the excellent airport you and I both used to get to Ottawa today: the island airport, or Billy Bishop airport. It's an example of how important good transport infrastructure is.
As we've been discussing, I am disappointed with this procurement. I think that is a view shared by all members of this committee. My view is that this needs to serve as a wake-up call, and what we need to do is work very hard to ensure that we are buying Canadian. Where we have major procurement, we need to work hard to ensure that we're using Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum and Canadian lumber.
There are two very specific steps that I've taken to make that a reality.
First of all, I've sent out a letter. There are actually 71 letters, and we worked on them together. They were sent to all of the entities that are under the control of Transport Canada, making it clear to them, in writing, my expectation that they will put a priority on Canadian jobs and Canadian workers. In that letter, I specifically instructed them to focus on using Canadian steel, Canadian aluminum and Canadian lumber.
I want to emphasize that point. These are absolutely essential sectors of the Canadian economy, and we—collectively, as a country—need to be finding projects to use that steel, aluminum and lumber here in Canada.
The second thing I've done—and this is really important—is convene two meetings. One is for the shipbuilding and ferry-operating sector. We'll have the federal government, provincial representatives, shipbuilders, publicly and privately owned ferry operators, labour and the steel sector, in particular. We're going to work together and talk about what we need to do to ensure that, going forward, we are making decisions that support our shipbuilding sector and our steel sector.
We are going to be doing the same thing with the major rail operators when it comes to light rail. I had a conversation today with Rob Prichard about ways in which the high-speed rail project can be one that fills up the order books of our steelmakers going forward. I also spoke to the CEO of a steel company this morning about exactly that issue, as well as the issue of ferries.
We should use this committee meeting to look ahead and say this is a moment when, as a country, we have an opportunity to help ourselves. It's going to take a lot of hard work. I think it's work that is very important to do.