Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for Davenport for the opportunity to address this important issue. I would like to read a quote:
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member knows that the government does not operate and no government can operate on the basis of dedicated taxes.
Who said that? The former finance minister and former prime minister, the member for LaSalle—Émard, who the member has indicated was the founder of all these great and wonderful things for cities. Indeed he was not. It is this government.
On November 6, 2007, our Prime Minister launched building Canada, the government's new infrastructure plan. Building Canada is worth $33 billion, an unprecedented amount. This had never been done before in Canada since the second world war. This is over a seven year period. It is the largest and most long term commitment to public infrastructure by any federal government in modern history.
Over $17.6 billion, or 50% of the building Canada plan is in the form of direct guaranteed funding for municipalities to help them with their infrastructure needs. That is the important part. We are listening to them and we are putting money into their priorities.
This includes $8 billion in new money to extend the gas tax fund from 2010 to 2014. The gas tax fund is predictable, up front and flexible for cities. It responds absolutely directly to municipal requests for stable funding.
In addition, we have extended the 100% GST rebate to municipalities, thereby providing an additional estimated $5.8 billion in flexible funding that we are confident they will use for their priorities.
We have committed another $8.8 billion in new funding for the building Canada fund to support large and small scale projects across the country. This will include support for key priority projects identified by municipalities, again their priorities, such as transit and clean water.
As part of this fund there is a dedicated component that will support projects in communities with a population of less than 100,000.
This Conservative government has taken strong action announcing support for priorities that will bring benefits to municipalities right across this great country, including clean water, waste water, better public transit and green energy.
We will also address local priorities such as improved transportation; connectivity and broadband, which is very important in rural Canada; solid waste management; disaster mitigation, such as happened in Manitoba; brownfield redevelopment, such as happened in Atlantic Canada, British Columbia and other areas; cultural infrastructure, such as in Toronto and Quebec; sport infrastructure; and tourism.
These are the priorities that municipalities have identified and we are responding in an unprecedented way.
This includes strong support for small communities, and large cities like Toronto. Over $900 million was announced by the Prime Minister to support improved public transit and highway infrastructure in the greater Toronto area. In fact, he announced that last March for five different projects in that area. There have been other announcements, including to help clean water in the Huron Elgin London project. We are taking positive action.
Provinces, territories and municipalities asked for increased, predictable and longer term funding to address growing infrastructure pressures. We have heard them. We have listened and we have taken positive action for Canadians.