Mr. Speaker, when debate adjourned last night, I understood I had three minutes. This is wonderful news. It is one more minute for a politician to talk.
When I left off debate, I was talking about the opportunities that Canada has in the area of international trade. As we know, Canada is a trading nation. It is one of the most successful trading nations in the world. In fact, it is perhaps the most resource rich country in the world. The nations of the world are beating a path to our doorstep not only for our resources and commodities but they are also looking to us for the technological expertise and much of the information we can deliver to make the world a better place.
When I left off debate, I was raising a number of reasons why we face challenges in Canada in trying to maximize the benefits we get from international trade. The first of these reasons was the awful truth that previous federal governments had essentially abandoned any significant effort to build our national infrastructure and the result was an aging infrastructure that was ill-suited to compete with the demands of the 21st century.
That is why the Conservative government, of course, introduced a $33 billion building Canada fund, which is a plan that is going to rebuild and renew our national infrastructure. It is the largest investment of its kind certainly in the last 50 years, if perhaps not in Canadian history. The building Canada fund is going to be rolled out over the next seven years.
There is a second reason why we have challenges in the area of making sure that we compete internationally for trade. That was the fact that the level of service in transportation, specifically railway transportation, was in a critical state of affairs. For many years virtually everyone in the shipping industry had complained about the fact that the level and quality of service delivered by our large national railways had declined.
To address this concern, our government introduced Bill C-8, which goes a long way to improving the level of service in our national railways. It ensures that the dispute resolution mechanisms available for shippers are efficient, low cost and timely.
The third reason why Canada is beginning to have challenges in the area of its gateways and trade corridors is the fact that our country does not have the legal flexibility given to its ports to be able to adapt to a rapidly changing economic environment. When I talk about ports, I am talking about marine ports, such as the port of Vancouver, the port of Montreal, the port of Halifax.
There are numerous other inland and marine ports across Canada that have challenges. They have transportation pinch points that restrict the ability of those who carry on trade with Canada and within Canada to get the job done. That is why we have introduced Bill C-23. It provides much more flexibility to the ports to be able to adapt to changing environments.
One of the areas where we are providing more flexibility is, for example, in the area of land management. Ports will now have more powers and authority to manage their lands, to lease them, to sell them, and to use them for the purposes they deem necessary for their businesses. We have also expanded the whole area of legal authority and the ability to borrow money, which again had been severely constrained until now.
We believe this flexibility is going to allow our ports to become even more dynamic because if we do not become more dynamic in the area of trade and ensure the infrastructure in Canada is in place to adapt to increasing trade, we are going to lose out.
There are many other ports across North America now that are competing with us and they are very aggressive. We need to make sure that our ports in Canada have the ability to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
I am thankful for the opportunity to address this very important issue for Canadians.