Finance committee  Thank you for your question. I will defer to Gabe.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. With regard to the technical question, I will defer to Gabe because I'm sure he's better versed with regard to the exact answers than I am.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I don't have, of course, statistics on that, because they are kept by the federal government as to whether all the money has gone, but I understand by this morning's release that in fact all the stimulus moneys have been allocated, as I mentioned.

Finance committee  Okay, and you've asked me for my opinion. My opinion is that the communities are working flat out to get these things done by the stimulus date. The program generally has been a success, in our view, because it has provided employment and it has provided needed work on infrastruc

Finance committee  I'm afraid you're beyond my level of expertise with regard to solutions on that. We have been speaking with the federal government and have said that where necessary we would like some type of reasonableness with regard to that date. Again, I imagine those discussions would have

Finance committee  I'll be quick. First, we need to continue to protect core infrastructure investments. Second, we need to deal with the budget deficit without downloading more costs. Third, we need to sit down and develop a long-term plan to build on recent investments as the budget outlook i

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I am very pleased to be with you today on behalf of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. As you know, we represent over 90% of the Canadian population in more than 1,900 municipalities across the country. I would like to

Transport committee  Thank you. That sort of calls for speculation. We just had our conference two weeks ago, and we did not have a great reaction from our members. I think if there had been widespread dissatisfaction with the program or the deadline, our membership would have told us at the confere

Transport committee  Thank you very much. I appreciate what you've said. Of course, you're absolutely right insofar as it looks as though the vast majority of the projects are going to be completed on time and on budget, and everything's fine. I come from an educational background, and if all of t

Transport committee  That's a technical question, and I'll refer you to Mr. Buda for that.

Transport committee  I certainly agree with you there. The gas tax has done a great deal for us in communities in helping us rebuild our infrastructure. Of course, as was mentioned by Brock, what we'd like to see down the road is something in the way that would make sure it continues to hold its val

Transport committee  Very good, yes. We did speak about the future, because one of the things that has worked out is that the economic action plan has been successful for most communities, and we're quite happy with the way things are turning out, generally speaking, and that in fact we're looking fo

Transport committee  I certainly agree with what you've said; however, sometimes things are beyond the community's control. Ontario was able to get under way quite early, and that's good because it gives them a leap. In B.C., because of the provincial election, we actually didn't even get the first a

Transport committee  Thank you for that. You are correct, of course, that the vast majority of projects are well underlined and complete, and for that I think we're all very happy. But that's not the case for all of them, and that's where we're asking for flexibility.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Bevington. Actually, our call was for flexibility, not a change in the deadline, per se. With regard to that, I know Mr. Buda has some comments that he would like to make, because I know he studied the situation thoroughly.