Absolutely. I appreciate that, and I will start off by just saying that it's interesting, because although we are the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, the majority of our members are rural. One of the gaps is the definition of what “rural” means. According to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, it's anything under a population of 100,000, so it's hard to say what it means. I'm just telling you, from my perspective as a small-town mayor, I feel I am rural so I can speak about small towns.
The federal gas tax model is important because it is indexed and it's sustainable. As you were saying, we are required to do capital plans, and our new municipal government act coming out from the province requires you to do five-year capital plans. We know exactly what our capital projects and needs for infrastructure are, but provincially we do not have sustainable planning. It would be great if we could see more models come from the federal government that were more predictable and sustainable. The federal gas tax money is indexed. It flows directly to municipalities without application, and although there are parameters of what it can be used for, the decision of exactly where it goes is made at the local level.
I think that is very important for your smaller municipalities, as I was saying, that know whether it is a water project that is their number one, or whether they've been investing heavily in water and their project is a bridge or a road, or a recreation centre. It would be great to see other models coming out in the same model, just because it's sustainable.