Mr. Speaker, the creation of an infrastructure foundation will do nothing to stimulate the economy.
Instead of acting immediately, the government preferred to wait until the fall of 2002, not to build, but only to establish the budget of the new foundation, on the condition, of course, that the government runs a surplus. At best, work will begin in the spring of 2003.
Had the government really intended to invest immediately in the economy the $2 billion it claims to want to allocate to the foundation, why did it not simply improve the existing infrastructure program, as Quebec is asking it to?