What's really interesting, of course, is that the moment we're in really does feel like the best moment to work in infrastructure, I have to say. I think all of you as committee members have a really important job over the coming years, because we have both a challenge in front of us but also a real opportunity to diversify our trade, to invest in the north in a way we never have before, to invest in the supply chains that are going to power the world, be they energy or critical minerals. We at the CIB take that really seriously and are really excited about it.
To answer your question, some of the things we're thinking about are, for sure, trade routes and corridors. We're having discussions with every port in Canada. We have two loans today with the Prince Rupert Port Authority. You know there are expansion plans, whether it's in Vancouver or Montreal, and we're certainly having discussions on northern gateways like Grays Bay. All of those are meant to open up new markets for Canadian goods.
The second thing is that investments in the north are also, I think, to this moment really about sovereignty and security in the north. You often have a dual purpose. This project, Grays Bay, for example, would be about critical minerals export, about securing trade routes through the Northwest Passage and about providing a new site for Coast Guard and naval use, so dual use infrastructure is really important.
When it comes to Canadian content, I think as policy-makers.... What I hear from infrastructure project owners across the country is an incredible desire to maximize the use of Canadian content. As I said, on the projects we've financed today, the estimates from our partners and from our independent analysis are that over 230,000 Canadian workers will work on those project sites over the life of those projects. That is real economic value. Also, our project partners are telling us that many of their supply chains are truly global in nature, so if you're building a solar farm or if you're building a battery storage facility or broadband in the north, many of those things are sourced in global markets.
I think the challenge that we all face is how we grow Canadian champions in the places that we want to have them. How do we therefore make them winners, not only in Canada, but globally, frankly, and how do we use procurement in Canada to help them springboard? Sorry, this is a long answer, but the best example I'll give you is in the nuclear industry. We have done this before in nuclear, where we used Canadian procurement and built a Canadian supply chain over decades. It doesn't happen overnight. That gave us a foothold to be suppliers to the world. We're doing it again now around small modular reactors, which is an investment that the CIB has made alongside Ontario and the private sector, building new small modular reactors with the idea that we can then be suppliers to other parts of the world.
I think the challenge is going to be picking the spots where we can be leaders, and the CIB will help drive that by getting new stuff built.