Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I just want to take this opportunity to thank Minister Merrifield and Minister Baird for being here. As a new member of Parliament, I feel very privileged that I can ask you some questions and get some specific answers, so thank you for being here.
I represent the riding of Portage—Lisgar. It's a riding located in southern Manitoba. I also really appreciate the support of the people in Portage—Lisgar. I want to make that clear. They're a very hard-working group of people who seem to tackle problems head-on. I've been touring the riding over the past few months. It's a riding made up of numerous municipalities and small towns. I've had an opportunity to speak with many of the mayors, the reeves, and the councillors, and I find that these are people who work full time, they run businesses, they have jobs, maybe they run farms, and then in their off time they're helping their municipalities to succeed.
Can you expand and let me know how you've been working together with municipalities and provinces in coming to some of the decisions regarding the funding for infrastructure for municipalities?