I would like to ask another question in order to get some clarification.
What this means is that if we had a scenario such as the one suggested by the NDP and its amendment, we might not have seen the bottleneck in the spending projected in the budget, where the money was not spent. Perhaps the slowdown in the economy that we have seen might have been dealt with much more effectively if, over the last two years, the money that was provided for in these programs had been spent, rather than announcing the expenditures and then not making them because an agreement was not reached with the provinces or because the provinces do not have the same financial means. That is what led to this result. It's rather depressing. I feel it is almost shocking that we are faced with this reality. For the past two years, many expenditures have been announced for infrastructure but we have not seen the expected results, because the necessary agreements were not concluded and the money was not spent; and yet today we hear from all sides that construction must start quickly so that we can replace the lack of consumer spending that is a result, for example, of the decreased economic activity in the United States, that carries on through to Canada.