Today, Canada is in the business of travel and transportation on the world stage. Canadian good and services are shipped around the world by Canadian carriers on land, on the sea and in the air. You can see other parts of the story of transportation in Canada right here, in the Canada Science and Technology Museum. You might have noticed some of the antique automobiles on your way in, or the model of the Titanic . And right here in this hall, the massive steam engines remind us how Canadians travelled in the first half of the twentieth century and they reflect the importance of rail in Canada's history.
Rail transportation is important today, too.
It holds great potential for the future as we look for other ways than our highways, which are increasingly congested, to travel and to meet our shipping and transportation needs. Today, transportation is growing and changing as much as it did in the past. New technologies are helping us find better ways to build fuel-efficient cars and trucks, faster trains and airplanes as well as how to keep track of them and plan shorter, faster routes and pass goods, services and travellers more efficiently through international borders. National Transportation Week will provide another opportunity to highlight the important role of transportation in our past, our present and our future and to build on the great work that the Heritage Canada Foundation is doing with Heritage 2001. I would like to congratulate everyone who has been involved with this project.