Mr. Speaker, my story is almost finished. My colleague will be able to put it to good use and I will get back to Bill C-39 very soon.
What the people at that organization told me is worth remembering. The second student job position really helped get volunteers some time off, time for their first-ever vacation. Let that sink in for a second. Having one extra person made it possible for volunteers to take some vacation time. What we do here has a real impact in our communities. I wanted to highlight that at the start of my speech today.
Now, I would like to get back to Bill C-39, the building Canada strong act, under discussion today. I want to begin by referring to a book published in 2025, which I am sure will call to mind Bill C-39 for my colleagues. In the book Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, one of the questions the authors ask is why a country as rich and technologically advanced as our southern neighbour currently struggles to build enough housing, infrastructure, energy and other essential goods. To some degree, I think we all see some similarity to the challenges facing Canada today.
The authors argue that part of the problem is the rules, procedures and institutions that, over time, have made delivering major projects much slower and much more difficult. They therefore advocate for placing greater emphasis on our ability to produce, build and deliver. In short, this means shifting from a policy focused primarily on distributing resources to one that also seeks to increase supply, ramp up our production capacity and boost our ability to build.
At this point, I think it is fair to draw a parallel between that analysis and what we are proposing in Bill C‑39 to build Canada strong. I am sure all of my colleagues have heard the old saying about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. We need to do things differently. We need to think differently. Anyone who believes we can keep doing exactly the same things and suddenly achieve different results is sticking their head in the sand. That is choosing inaction. That is choosing the status quo, and the status quo is a choice. Changing nothing is a choice. Leaving things the way they are is a choice.
We must move away from this mindset and regain our ability to build. We are capable of building more, with greater ambition, and more quickly. Let us take an example from our history: the St. Lawrence Seaway. Major construction work began in 1954, and the Seaway was officially opened to navigation in 1959. It took five years to build the Montreal-Lake Ontario section, which spans approximately 300 kilometres of waterways. It was not just a matter of digging a canal. It required building locks, constructing canals, erecting dams, carrying out major dredging work, modifying bridges and relocating infrastructure.
Continuing westward, Montreal is about 600 kilometres from Lake Erie by waterway via Lake Ontario and the Welland Canal. The entire waterway network connecting the St. Lawrence to the heart of the Great Lakes stretches over 2,000 kilometres. Just think about that for a moment. In the 1950s, in just a few years, we were able to carry out one of the greatest infrastructure projects of our time, and we did a significant portion of the work right here at home in Canada. We built, we thought big, and we transformed our economy.
The question we need to ask ourselves today is simple. Can we still build with that same ambition? I believe that Bill C‑39 invites us to reflect on this question and, above all, to regain the ability to complete major projects for future generations of Canadians.
What does that mean in concrete terms? First, it means making our approval processes for major projects more predictable.
These days, when a business, community or proponent wants to build a major project, they often have to navigate multiple processes and steps that might overlap and make the work more complex. It can take longer to get results. Bill C-39 proposes to better coordinate these processes so that decisions on projects requiring a federal permit can be made within one year. Let me be clear. We do not have to choose between upholding Canada's strong environmental protections and streamlining the project review process. We can and must do both. We can be ambitious and rigorous at the same time.
I cannot help but immediately think of my region, the Quebec City region, and specifically the Port of Québec, which plays an important role in our regional economy and our trade with the rest of the world. Bill C‑39 proposes to modernize the governance of Canadian ports, reduce certain administrative burdens and facilitate the digitization of trade. The bill also designates strategic trade corridors and establishes a transportation project office to better coordinate federal permits and advance priority projects.
A product manufactured in Quebec does not only create value when it leaves the factory. It must then be efficiently transported to a port, a railway or the border and on to new markets. An efficient supply chain is essential to enabling our businesses to grow and innovate. At a time when Canada is looking to diversify its trade and reduce its dependence on certain markets, this capability becomes even more important. We have signed 20 trade agreements over the past year. We must now honour our commitments.
This is what building Canada strong means in practical terms. It means enabling a business to carry out a project. It means enabling a port to operate more efficiently. It means enabling our products to reach new markets. It means providing future generations with the infrastructure, jobs and opportunities they will need. Canada has the resources, the talent, the workers, the businesses and the communities capable of achieving great things. Our challenge is not knowing whether we have the capacity to build. Our challenge is equipping ourselves with the means to do just that, the means to realize our ambitions.
We need to simplify where we can simplify, coordinate where we can coordinate better, protect what we need to protect. Above all, we need to rediscover our collective ability to build Canada strong.