Well, as the Italian minister of finance said the other day at our G7 meeting, we are in terra incognita. I don't have a crystal ball about how the economy is going to do. You had the Governor of the Bank of Canada here, I know, and he's fairly optimistic about next year.
What we do know now is that we need to create economic activity in Canada. We know that the private sector is not doing so adequately, due to access to credit issues and other things. So that is why we have the use-it-or-lose-it approach in the budget with respect to infrastructure.
Many of the municipalities and some of the provinces have work that could be done right away in the nature of repairs, renovations, and restorations that do not require environmental assessments. We believe in environmental assessments, but environmental assessments cause some delay, and the need for job creation is immediate. That's one of the reasons for the provision of a few billion dollars for colleges and universities in the budget, to permit the universities to go ahead with some of the deferred maintenance, as it's called, that needs to be done at our universities from coast to coast. So that's what I mean by shovel-ready.
There will be other projects later this year and next year contemplated in the funding for infrastructure in the budget, projects that will be constructive—excuse the pun—or good for the country, but these will not provide immediate employment.