There are a couple of things.
It's a privilege for me to be able to be here, and I want to start by saying how much I admire the work of committees. I've spent a fair amount of time on committees over the years, and I certainly treat committees' work with a tremendous amount of respect.
With that, I want to say thank you for the job you did with regard to railway safety. I'm going through that at the present time. I congratulate the committee for years gone by and some of the work that you've done.
I want to talk about some of the new money in our economic action plan. We have not only the $33 billion in the Building Canada plan, but another $12 billion of new money for infrastructure spending. This includes $4 billion in an infrastructure stimulus fund that will help the provinces, territories, and municipalities to get their projects started as soon as possible. There's another $2 billion to accelerate construction of colleges and universities, so this is actually good news on that front. There's $1 billion in the new green infrastructure fund; $5 million in support for the construction of new community recreational facilities; and also accelerating the base funding, which is, as you know, $25 million over a seven-year period per province.
As the Minister of State for Transport, I have the privilege to oversee many of the crown corporations that fall under the Department of Transport. Some of these you may not know, because I certainly didn't know, until I got into the portfolio, just how many of them there are. There are 15 that I'm directly responsible for, crown corporations such as Canada Post, the Canadian Mint, Marine Atlantic, VIA Rail, and many others. They play a very important role in the day-to-day lives of many Canadians, so I take the job very, very seriously.
As Minister Baird has mentioned, we need to work together to keep Canada working, to keep it strong. Our economic action plan includes the support of these crown corporations as well. One of those happens to be, as was mentioned in the budget and as you well know, the Champlain Bridge, under the Federal Bridge Corporation. It's Canada's busiest daily crossing, vital to the transportation and commercial links of the island of Montreal and the province of Quebec.
Very important as well is VIA Rail: $407 million for VIA Rail, another $71.8 million in rail safety. VIA Rail is very important, particularly the connection between Quebec and Windsor. Actually, the Montreal-Windsor-Ottawa-Toronto corridor is very important, and some of the work that will be done there is very exciting for VIA Rail and to help get Canadians moving.
When you think about what rail does for this country, there is a tremendous amount of traffic as far as passenger traffic is concerned, and that's what VIA does. But over 75% of the land movement of goods happens by rail in this country. It's very important that we get that right.
We'll discuss these measures a bit more, I'm sure, in the 2009-10 main estimates. We're pleased to be able to be here to work together for a prosperous future, at a time when the economic slowdown that is happening internationally is of utmost concern and very, very important. It'll be on the backs of all of us to be able to make sure that we, under our watch, work together for the betterment of all Canadians.