First, I would like to thank the government for not cutting infrastructure programs and for actually creating new ones. Every government has its merits and this one has that particular merit.
What I am telling you today is that the money you don't give the municipalities, if you maintain too rigid a deadline, is money the municipalities will have to borrow. There is already an infrastructure deficit in Canada, as previous governments and the current government have acknowledged. Some Quebec municipalities will be deprived of the opportunity to maintain their infrastructure, thereby increasing their maintenance deficit.
I appeared before several committees, as President of the Coalition pour le renouvellement des infrastructures du Québec, to demonstrate that, in addition to the fiscal deficit that appears on the balance sheet, there is also an extremely significant maintenance deficit for infrastructure, bridges and roads. It's the same for hospitals and schools. This country does not have a very good maintenance culture. In fact, in that respect, we are not exactly a role model among OECD countries—quite the contrary.
Today I am here to ask what will be done with the money earmarked and announced under the stimulus program that is not given to municipalities because of the deadline. It may serve to ease the government's fiscal deficit, but it will also increase either the municipalities' debt or their infrastructure maintenance deficit. Job one is really to wipe out the infrastructure maintenance deficit much more quickly than we ever could, without the federal government's participation. If it doesn't participate and if it maintains this rigid deadline, it is the municipalities and the small taxpayers who will suffer, while the government recovers a few dollars which, in actual fact, when added on to the money from Quebec, would yield much better results if used for the economy, allowing it to access tax money more quickly.
We are partners, and this is the first time, as the government's partner, that I sense that the government does not understand the constraints under which we operate on a daily basis.