Transport committee  In terms of partnerships, part of our GLRI formation was through a coalition of concerned organizations in the Great Lakes on the U.S. side that came together and put pressure on the federal government to bring funding along that would help address a multitude of issues, whether addressing water pollution or the attenuation of impacts from climate change on our waterways and the shoreline.

Transport committee  I would defer that question to Université Laval. We don't have studies that pertain particularly to the transport industry or its impact on erosion. As I mentioned earlier, we did do a survey with Ontario and Quebec communities that identified over 300 million dollars' worth of investments over the next five years to address those issues.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the member for Niagara Centre again for the question. I would also be remiss if I didn't thank the member from Vimy. I forgot to thank her for participating in our mid-year meeting. I believe it was in January when she had just taken on the portfolio of parliamentary secretary for transport.

Transport committee  Absolutely. The recommendations in the action plan are science-based. They are community-based. We had a series of consultations done in the development of this action plan. It was an 18-month process. This is coming from a series of experts who helped lead consultations with communities, with first nations communities and with partners from both an environmental and an economic space.

Transport committee  That's a very good question. I admit we haven't yet begun consultations with our members on regulatory issues affecting their ability to introduce coastal resilience solutions. That's an issue that comes up increasingly frequently. We also noticed that one of our members, the City of Varennes, had to do some urgent work because the provincial Ministry of the Environment was too slow in taking action.

Transport committee  It seems absolutely reasonable to me. We're ultimately an environmental organization and therefore can't overlook the environmental impact. One of our organization's basic pillars is water equity, so socioeconomic issues are very important for us. I can't discuss the exact details of the regulatory issues, but we see that our municipalities are subjected to significant delays when they need to implement solutions.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. I'll go back to the action plan for 2020-30. Our recommendation is for the federal government to take a leadership position on this file and work with the provinces and other stakeholders, like cities and individual landowners, to come up with regional or local plans to address issues, or the phenomena, in a localized manner.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the member for Niagara Centre for the question and for his leadership around Great Lakes issues. Most people around the table would probably recognize that he is one of our Great Lakes champions, and I want to thank him for his work. As the member alluded to, the Great Lakes and St.

Transport committee  Well, certainly the IJC has a part to play in terms of a conversation around the Great Lakes water levels and the St. Lawrence levels, given their responsibility for managing those water levels. Again, I don't want to speak for the IJC or whether they should or should not be invited, but they're certainly a very important stakeholder with respect to Great Lakes management on both sides of the border and are an important partner who has a role to play, along with the federal government, in terms of managing this important resource.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the member for Essex for that question. I'm pleased to say that with the cities initiative last year we put together a mayors advisory commission on coastal resilience. We had the pleasure of having the member from Essex bring a local perspective on the case of erosion and flooding in the region.

Transport committee  Yes, that's right. The mayor of Windsor is one of our members.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would first like to thank the members of the standing committee for receiving us today on this important study. For our opening statement, I will be sharing my time with the mayor of Contrecoeur, Ms. Maud Allaire. To begin, for those of you who are not familiar with the Great Lakes and St.