The infrastructure underlies virtually every aspect of our lives—our roads, our water systems. You cannot go into a building--including this building--you cannot go into a factory that creates jobs, you cannot go into a car plant, you cannot go into a mine, you cannot go into a public school without infrastructure allowing those assets to exist, to provide their service to society, and to employ people. What we're concerned about is if we allow our infrastructure to erode...and by the way, if you average it all up, in lump sum, Canada's infrastructure on balance is at about 85% of its usable design life. It's not something you can fix immediately.
Here's the dilemma. You need to be fiscally sound to make these types of investments, but it's hard to become fiscally sound when your infrastructure is threatened. That's why we're appealing for a balanced plan. We know there's no quick fix. We recognize that the government has to be fiscally responsible in the management of its affairs. We think this actually adds to the urgency of having a long-term vision, compared to what we've seen for the last several decades of sporadic, intermittent infrastructure investment programs. I think we need to work in all three levels of government, the public and the private sectors, and I think we need to do some hard thinking about where we need to get to and maybe set a goal on the horizon—maybe that's 25 years, maybe that's 50 years. But we need to develop a long-term sustainable plan so that we can take a very rational approach. I think that's responsible to the taxpayers. I think it measures expectations.
We don't want to be trading off a structural fiscal deficit against a structural infrastructure deficit.