Mr. Speaker, that was a most learned discourse. It is absolutely unbelievable but I think the hon. member forgot in which House he was speaking. I think he thought he was speaking in the provincial house. I think he finally recognized that he was in Ottawa and so he got turned around a little bit.
The hon. member knows or should know that a tremendous amount of trade takes place between Canada and the United States. In fact 85% of our export market goes across the border and about 45% of that transfers across the border over three bridges in Ontario.
The member waxed very eloquently about the condition of the roads but there is a lot more to it than that. Not long ago I saw a presentation with a computer model showing how traffic could be re-routed through some of the border crossings.
I wonder whether the hon. member would have the courage to talk to the Minister of Finance to make some provision in the budget that would actually create an opportunity for a re-routing of this transportation and to be sure that in fact this could happen. That would eventually result in a more efficient transportation system and actually reduce the amount of money required to do this.
Is there a move on the part of the member to help the finance minister figure out a way that would work better? That is my first question.
The second question has to do with the position of cities in our economy today.