Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in the House today to add a few comments on this important debate about an issue that has been championed so energetically, so well and so intelligently by the member for Windsor West. I know of the passion he has for this, his understanding of the issue and the commitment he has made, and I am impressed.
The first question that people watching this might be asking is this one: what is the big deal?
Why is it that we are driving this piece of work here this morning? This is a rather important bill before the House that is going to change the way we manage and govern some very important pieces of infrastructure involving our connectedness with our neighbours to the south. Why are we focused on this little piece at the end of the day, which in some people's minds may not make such a big difference? I have to say that in fact it does make a big difference and it really is important.
As we look at the way our economy is evolving today and the need for us to be connected in some very real and meaningful ways to the world, to the global economy, and most particularly to our neighbours to the south, we begin to understand how important the minutia, the details, are when we discuss and are involved in making plans about and determining the nature of our connectedness with the United States of America. Our bridges and tunnels are ways of getting back and forth across the border. They are really very important and are actually the key to any economic success we will have going forward.
This is actually a chance for us. I thank the government for bringing this bill forward. This needed to be done. We needed to look at the way we manage our bridges and tunnels. Until now, it has been complicated and a bit of a patchwork. Some tunnels and bridges are owned by the private sector. Some have commissions that are locally based. Some are governed by the federal government. There is no real consistency and no real thought-out pattern involved in the way the bridges and tunnels have been managed.
They are too important for us not to be doing this. The bridges and tunnels are too important for us not to be asking the important questions that the member for Windsor West has been asking in committee and in the House since this bill was tabled a few months ago. He and his cohort, his partner from Windsor, the member for Windsor—Tecumseh, have been unrelenting in their pursuit of this piece of important interaction for the federal government as it decides what these bridges and tunnels will look like, whether they will expand or not, whether they will be repaired or not, and how it will deal with and respond to some of the very real issues that come up time and time again in communities where bridges, tunnels and ferries exist.
These issues do come up. The level of traffic back and forth between Canada and the United States over the last 20 or so years has risen exponentially. It has caused some of the problems that we are experiencing today, which is actually why we in the House are debating this bill. We in the New Democratic Party caucus are insisting that when decisions are made going forward, flowing out of this bill concerning these important pieces of infrastructure, municipal and local governments be consulted, because everything that happens in relation to bridges has a serious impact on the communities.
To give an example of how important the issue of the border crossings is, in the last Parliament and again in this one, an all party caucus of Parliament was formed. Members of every party and every caucus in this place gather on a regular basis to talk about the issues, to consult with each other, to hear from each other, and to be helpful to each other in how we give advice not only to our government but to the American government on how we manage, take care of and run our bridges and tunnels, the means of getting back and forth between the two countries. We bring in guest speakers. In the last Parliament, we had Ambassador Cellucci come and talk to us about the issue of security at the bridges and the tunnels.
Security is a very important issue. Again, this is why it is important that the federal government take on this responsibility. It is also, I think, why it is very important that the government consult with the local communities. Where issues of security are concerned, there has to be cooperation among the federal, provincial and local authorities if we are going to be effective in dealing with challenges that might present themselves at those institutions.
It is actually rather telling that a large number of members of Parliament gathered here over a year ago to meet, to talk with and to hear from Ambassador Cellucci in terms of some of his perceptions and understandings, and to share with him what ours were and get a good dialogue going. Significant numbers of members of Parliament now have actually travelled to Washington to be in consultation with some of the officials in the United States, and again, to talk about the border, how we manage this border that is common both to us, and how we put in place facilities and structures that will be most convenient for everybody concerned.
Again, we have to start, I believe, and this is what the member for Windsor West is saying every time he gets up on his feet in this place to talk to us, challenge us, inform and enlighten us and educate us about this issue. He is saying that we cannot do this effectively, that we cannot hope to be successful in the initiatives we take on, the investments we make and the developments we work with, if we are not talking directly with local government, if we do not have some method or way of getting input and consulting with local government.
As the member said so eloquently this morning in his comments, it is at the local level that we know best. We are closest to the action at the local level. Local politicians live, eat and breathe these issues on a daily basis. They watch the trucks go over. They watch the long lineups. They see the impact it has on local neighbourhoods as those trucks go through and as they stop to get serviced or whatever. The local level needs to be consulted.
I just have to look at my own community of Sault Ste. Marie, where we have a very important bridge that connects Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario with Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. It has become, in many ways, a central piece in the further economic development of not only our city but our whole region. What happens to that bridge is critical. The expansion of that bridge, hopefully, the development of the infrastructure at both ends of the bridge where we deal with people coming and going, and the mall that needs to be put up so we can increase commerce with that piece of infrastructure, this is all critical. It is a really important part of the economic development planned strategy that we have going forward in Sault Ste. Marie.
We have begun to think about, work on and make significant investments as a local community in the possibility of a multi-modal transportation hub in Sault Ste. Marie. If members look at Sault Ste. Marie on the map they will see that it is dead centre in the middle of Canada. Not only that, if we expand the map further, it is dead centre in the middle of North America.