Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have to make a quick comment before I go into my questions.
I find it profoundly interesting when the opposition expresses concern over EI, which is a sort of self-sustaining loop, but at the same time votes for a 45-day work year that would have an incredibly detrimental effect. I find those two concepts very hard to align.
I simply had to say that. I won't ask you to express your opinion on that particular view, Mr. Myers.
What I would really like to do is focus on the FCM. Certainly, as a former mayor of a small town, I appreciate the challenges around infrastructure, even the one-third, one-third, one third, and the capacity of communities. I wasn't a mayor when the gas tax came in, but I know I would have welcomed it with open arms.
We did hear from the minister earlier in terms of hoping that municipalities don't simply treat it as a grant but use it to leverage. I guess I have a couple of questions. Past practices show it has been mostly used as sort of a grant. Is that because it wasn't legislated and you couldn't count on it long term, and will legislating it make a difference?
Could you maybe talk about what enshrining the permanent gas tax fund in legislation will represent to municipalities, and a little bit about whether they are currently leveraging to some degree?