Mr. Speaker, the Quebec Treasury Board President, Michelle Courchesne, is forecasting a shortfall of $200 million if Ottawa refuses to extend its deadline and carries out its threats to withdraw funding for any infrastructure projects not completed by March 31, 2011. Projects are well under way, but things are reaching the boiling point; everyone wants to have their projects done by March 31. As a result, certain materials are becoming scarce and labour costs are increasing.
Why not simply extend the deadline, as everyone is calling for? Why is the Prime Minister insisting on this point? It would not cost him a penny more.