The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has just completed a report that talks about a deficit in Canada of $123 billion. Our party has spent a lot of time lately with the urban caucus, travelling around Canada, trying to get a list and a canvass of the kinds of things that need to be reinvested. That's why I think it would be very helpful if your association would canvass your agencies throughout the country and prepare for this committee a response to this specific question. What are your short-term, medium-term, and long-term infrastructure requirements, even over a five- or ten-year period?
The other thing is, we have to be very careful when you go to borrow money that we don't end up in the situation we ended up in when you were indeed given some new autonomy with the previous Liberal government, when Doug Young was the minister, where the changes occurred that allowed you the ability to be somewhat independent of the national government.
I think those are important principles to be guided by.
The last point, Mr. Chair, is a short question. I think I know the answer to this. Where is labour in all this? I think they are an important partner. I know they have been an important partner. I think they're on the witness list, but I think it would be helpful, again, for us as legislators to know where labour is and how they view this, and whether they're prepared to participate in the future. They're a critical component of all this.