We should be the capital, exactly. Why did somebody not think of that before, right after Winnipeg.
We believe we are a very important strategic location for the transport of goods, people and services back and forth between our two countries. The potential there is relatively untapped. The community itself is spending a significant amount of money. We want to thank the federal and provincial governments for their involvement in developing the roadways that are necessary but more work needs to be done. We need to make more investments into our rail infrastructure so we can have more rail traffic coming through Sault Ste. Marie and across the border. A deep sea harbour would be nice and some more competition in the air service that we get in and out of Sault Ste. Marie.
If that were all put in place we think Sault Ste. Marie would have tremendous potential to become a very important transportation hub. Central and key to that is the development of our bridge. We need more money to make the bridge capable of handling more traffic. If we become the multi-modal centre we think we have the potential to become, that bridge will have to move more traffic back and forth. It will have to be expanded. Something has to be done on the bridge to deal with that. However, as has happened in Windsor, we do not want to attract all this traffic only to find that now we have a backup as there is in Windsor creating all the problems that exist there.
We want to ensure that we are proactive, that we are looking ahead, that we are thinking ahead and that we will be ready when this new multi-modal project becomes a reality in our community. When people drive across the border, whichever way they are going, we want to ensure they are able to do so in a safe and quick fashion so they will want to come back again.
We would need significant help from the federal government in terms of investment in that infrastructure. Our bridge plaza needs to be expanded so that more services can be offered there. We need more personnel working at the border. We need border guards and people checking identification, and we need more facilities so that people have more readily available access.
I am here today on behalf of my caucus to say that we think this is a good bill that deserves support, at least at this reading. It should go to committee where hopefully the government will be willing to listen to our members, particularly the members for Windsor West and Burnaby--New Westminster with respect to some amendments that could be made to make this bill stronger and more useful in terms of how we manage the crossings between ourselves and the United States, and how we in fact do protect the security and the safety of those facilities and make them more accessible to our industries in particular, but also to the people who cross back and forth.
We have industries that are directly dependent on access to those bridges. Whether it is tourism, our resource based sectors or other industries, we need those tunnels and bridges to be available and well maintained. We need those bridges to be safe and secure and to be owned in fact, if that is going to happen, by the federal government, so that it will have the control it says it wants, to protect our interests and to make sure we are responding to some of the realities of today where security is concerned.
We are looking forward to working with the government on this bill at committee. We hope it will seriously consider and take heed of amendments we will bring forward. If we see those amendments included in the bill when it comes back to the House, the government can be assured of our support.