Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Unfortunately, there is no public information on funding for the various programs. No exact figures are posted on the Conservative government's Web site.
Quebeckers should know that there is a major delay in announcements, and I am keeping an eye on it. I am not passing judgment on the situation in Quebec, as the information is not available.
I do hope, however, that the government is interested in ensuring that the process for all programs is democratic, honest and transparent, in order to assure all Canadians that the program is pretty fair.
And on the idea that we don't have any of the information, Mr. Jean is welcome to table with the committee the projects in Quebec, most of which have been announced very late, as in British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Alberta, month and months and months later, when in fact if there had been a gas tax transfer, which in Quebec is handled in a certain kind of way, it would have been part of the budgets of municipalities.
They came to Ottawa—as did the Canadian Construction Association—and said expressly, “If you want to help Canadians get jobs, please put this with a gas tax transfer. It will be in our budgets April 1. And here”—and I believe Quebec municipalities were as forthcoming—“are 1,000 projects that we believe could have shovels in the ground this construction season”.
I agree that it is a little different from province to province, and that's why the Parliamentary Budget Officer would have been helpful. And I agree that Mr. Landon is not going to add to our understanding of the situation in Quebec, and I appreciate that, but he might help us get clues to why there was such a long delay, four or five months, before any dollars were announced. We understand that the ministry did not do its due diligence of the type it described to us in briefings before, and that in fact this did not meet the standard of previous infrastructure programs.
Mr. Landon is, I think, a legitimate, credible person. He is a sitting elected official. He was until very recently acceptable to the Conservative Party as their candidate. He was, I assume, nominated. I don't know if he was contested. He was certainly vetted by the party and seen to be someone who could be their standard bearer, so I don't think his character per se has been brought into question. It's a little ambiguous from some of the comments on the other side, but I never heard anything that would say that. So he's simply someone who could help shed light on some of the practices. He can put to bed some of the concerns, if the members opposite aren't shy or afraid or unable to agree to hear him.