Madam Speaker, that is an excellent question. The member has squarely hit the point that I was hoping to make, that there has to be this equity. Let there be no doubt that I come from the sixth largest city in the country. It is a large urban centre but small compared to Toronto. I think 19% of the population of Canada is in the GTA. It is a foreign place to people from remote or rural areas of Canada.
The member raises an interesting aspect. If we were applying things on a per capita basis, communities such as the member has talked about, small rural communities or where there might be some mining, et cetera, which have no population base or no tax base to speak of, could not possibly get, on a per capita basis, enough money to make any difference.
Maybe the response would be this. Why are we trying to help everybody with the same instrument, as opposed to what would help those areas? How will we ensure that those areas that need infrastructure, or safe sewer and water systems, or roads so trucks do break down as often because of deterioration of roadways get what they need? Those things are probably the most important in some of the more remote areas because of the nature of the activity that goes on there. I agree wholeheartedly with the member.
Maybe we should not consider simply the gas tax because almost under any formula a small community of a couple of thousand people will not share. Maybe we have to look for ways. If we cannot treat everybody the same and be equitable, maybe we should treat those in this gasoline sharing or other instrument of sharing of revenues with those communities that have the potential to develop an economic base and the equity would come by the delivery of other benefits through other programs to the those areas specifically targeted that could not possibly benefit under this program.