That takes me in the same direction as my colleague, Mr. Ruimy.
The parliamentary budget officer's report indicates that almost all the funding earmarked for phase 1 was spent on large urban centres.
I think the reality is the same in most ridings in Canada. In mine at least, the largest municipality has 56,000 residents and the second largest has about 10,000. Twenty-two have less than 3,000 people.
In your presentation, when you talked about the Canada Infrastructure Bank, you said that large infrastructure projects would benefit from that investment, but that this would also be the case for rural and northern communities. I have trouble seeing how that will be possible. Why is the funding for small communities so low when we know that they are the ones that need it the most and have the fewest resources?
Your co-operation with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is interesting, but, in my riding, the only municipality that is a member keeps wondering every year whether it will still have the means to pay the fee. The municipalities that are represented feel excluded from the process.