Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The third amendment moved by the New Democratic Party amends clause 302 of Bill C-10, which covers the communities component of the Building Canada Fund. It would amend line 15 on page 287. Clause 302 reads as follows:
302. There may be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund on the requisition of the Minister of Transport, in accordance with terms and conditions approved by the Treasury Board, a sum not exceeding $250 million to provide funding for infrastructure projects in communities that have a population of less than 100,000.
After replacing line 15 on page 287, the amended clause would read as follows:
302. There may be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund on the requisition of the Minister of Transport, in accordance with terms and conditions approved by the Treasury Board, except those requiring contributions from other levels of government, a sum not exceeding $250 million [...].
Mr. Chairman, I am convinced that my Bloc Québécois colleagues will support this amendment, because this covers communities that have fewer than 100,000 people. Under current National Assembly legislation, those communities are officially prohibited from dealing directly with the federal government. Quebec will thus find its prerogatives intact.
I hope that my colleagues from Ontario, who represent regions with communities comprising less than 100,000 people, will agree and see the wisdom of this amendment. Once again, we are assuming that municipalities, towns and communities comprising fewer than 100,000 people can provide significant amounts to match the amounts provided by the federal government. Two hundred and fifty million dollars is quite a sum. That money will have to flow. However, as we have already said, if the funding is provided on condition that those small communities match it, we can safely bet that the money will never flow, and will never leave government coffers. That would once again support our belief that the Conservatives are simply claiming that they will spend enough money to come up with a figure that stands at over 3% of GDP, but do not really mean to spend any of it.
Here, an assumption is being made about the money that communities, cities and provinces will spend. The government has also claimed that it has saved some $8 billion by cutting spending in departments—that is a joke, Mr. Chairman, because Conservatives are the worst public administrators in Canada's history. In just three years, before tabling this budget, they had already increased government spending by $40 billion a year, over 23%, without any concrete results for Canadians. It goes without saying that even more spending is provided for here, Mr. Chairman. Once again, there is no vision and there are no real results.
In addition, the government is now talking about $250 million that will go to communities. Yet, we already know that those communities are in no position to provide their own share of the funding, a share they must put up before the money can actually flow.
In defence of those communities with a population of less than 100,000, the New Democratic Party begs its colleagues from the Bloc Québécois and the Liberal Party to understand that the money will never be spent if they do not support our amendment. Our amendment is in order because it does not incur additional government spending. What we do want, however, is for the federal government to actually spend the money, and to stop making that spending conditional on municipalities' or provinces' matching the funds.
Mr. Chairman, to sum things up in English, right now we're looking at the communities component of the Building Canada Fund, $250 million for communities with a population of fewer than 100,000 people. I think that in a municipality with less than 100,000 people it's quite obvious we're going to be dealing with the type of situation we've already described. The federal government is putting up a big number, $250 million, but it's not going to get spent.
Most of those municipalities can't pony up the cash to meet their part of the obligation. Provinces have already said that money won't be there. And to assuage my colleagues from the Bloc, I would remind them that existing provincial legislation in Quebec, duly enacted by the National Assembly of Quebec, provides that those municipalities are not allowed to deal directly with the federal government, so any concern that they might have regarding jurisdiction is obviated.
I think the City of Montreal, as much as the City of Toronto in the previous example, deserves their money; the smaller towns and cities of Quebec, Ontario, B.C. and all the other areas of Canada that so sorely need this money--there are a lot of municipalities that fall into this category of under 100,000--deserve the support. They don't have the money to meet this new requirement that they match funds with the federal government. That's why we're proposing it be removed. The amount, of course, is being maintained; there just won't be any strings attached anymore, Mr. Chair.