Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Baird. Good morning to the officials from the Department of Transport, whom I've met several times in the past few years.
Mr. Baird, I, for one, am deeply disappointed with the current situation. Since last September, rather than meeting to begin reacting to the economic situation, the government triggered an election which brought us back to the same situation. Following that, in November, when we resumed business, we missed an opportunity to present a budget that would have contained an action fund for the economy. That opportunity was missed because of the prorogation of Parliament. Today, in February, we are discussing matters that should have been discussed in September.
Everyone can agree that there is a lot of catching up to do. You want to launch projects quickly. However, we can't just start projects anywhere anyway and anyhow. You are well aware that under our system, provinces have areas of jurisdiction. That is where the problem lies.
I'm told that last September, there was a Canada-Quebec agreement with respect to previous funding from Building Canada. To my knowledge, none of those projects have been implemented because there was no agreement signed with Quebec. Now we are talking about new budgets for shovel-ready projects. My concern is the following: Would you only be choosing shovel-ready projects? Would some provinces be penalized because they were informed too late?
Since you know that you will have the support of the Liberals to pass your budget, have you taken measures to make sure that projects will be implemented immediately, once the budget is officially passed in House of Commons? Since you can count on the support of the Liberals, measures should be undertaken right now so that projects can get started quickly.
I'll hand the floor over to you so that you can give me the reassurance that the issues that we should have dealt with last September are making progress. As elected members of Parliament, we all have an interest in letting people see that you are taking measures to stimulate the economy; we have to prove this, to make sure that our actions follow our words.