Or Timmins, Ontario, as it were, connected by rail, of course.
What we are saying is we have to think outside the box. Because of congestion, a terminal such as Vancouver is not going to be able to handle the millions and millions of containers that we anticipate flowing here from Asia and containers flowing out of here back across the Pacific Ocean full of Canadian commodities for export.
This is going to take a rethinking of monumental proportion. This is going to take some vision. The only vision we have seen in the transportation network in the last 30 years is how to tear up tracks, not how to build them.
The reason I raise this today is to serve notice to the House that there is a movement afoot in the city of Winnipeg to tear up the tracks in the inner city of Winnipeg and build a great inland port on the outskirts of Winnipeg that in fact will be a state of the art shipping container distribution terminal.
I have seen some humdingers. I have been to Shanghai. I have been to Indonesia and seen that state of the art container distribution terminal. I have been to Vietnam, and Fuzhou, China. Those terminals do not look anything like we have seen in this country. Those container terminals are like something we cannot even imagine. But this 40 page report shows us the way. It gives us a road map. It whets our appetite to investigate the enormous potential if we want to get with it and get into the 21st century in terms of an integrated shipping system.
As a member of Parliament representing the inner city of Winnipeg, I welcome this opportunity. If we do tear up the tracks that have divided historically the north end and the south end of Winnipeg with all the predictable social and economic consequences which flowed from that, and put those tracks outside the city where they belong, the opportunities would be enormous.
From an inner city point of view, the inner city of Winnipeg desperately needs new housing stock, new green space, new recreation facilities. This would be 250 acres, a subdivision in the heart of the city. If people would just dare to dream how wonderful it could be to meet these urgent needs and also to avail ourselves of this wonderful economic development opportunity of being the terminus, taking advantage of our geographic advantage as the very centre of North America, we could be the distribution hub for the continent.
Let me remind members that the full title of the Asia-Pacific gateway is the Asia-Pacific gateway and corridor initiative. It contemplates the input of the shipping containers from Asia through Vancouver and Prince Rupert, from Europe and Russia through Churchill, from South America and Africa through the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes, all of it coming toward the true geographic centre of North America, which is Winnipeg, to be received, off-loaded and redistributed on a north-south corridor.
The Red River corridor goes north to south from Churchill through Winnipeg straight down to Texas, into Mexico, into South America. This is the vision of a great distribution network in which we could play a role and it starts right here. This is how these things begin, in the House of Commons with a little red report of 40 pages that was released without any fanfare. It is loaded with such potential that I can hardly convey it to you, Mr. Speaker.
Winnipeg has been a tale of two cities for many years. It is divided socially, economically and culturally by this great industrial scar right through the heart of our city. I am saying that we tear up the tracks, that we heal that scar, that we put in housing, green space, recreation. Let us get the tracks out of the city and rebuild a great distribution network, something that you as a railway man, Mr. Speaker, would be proud of.