Mr. Généreux, your way of seeing things is very concrete. It's easy; it's not complicated. However, if municipalities had not taken the risk of launching these projects, your program would not have worked.
Was the government's objective to say that it had designed a program but didn't want it to work? That is your decision. If you want it to work, you have to consider the reality.
Also, some had the courage to start projects thinking that they would take the risk and then negotiate with their government friends, who are their partners, and who are not there to make life difficult for them or treat them as though they're bad pupils. Without the municipalities, you would not have had a program. It would not have worked.
Now that we are appearing before you, please don't serve up the example of municipalities that did not participate in the program. Financially speaking, some municipalities simply could not take that risk. Others did. In all the cases I have cited today, the municipalities involved will have a larger debt and will have provided money to their federal and provincial governments for the economic recovery. That is the opposite of the way things should have worked, and that is not the municipalities' job; it's your job.
Today, I am appealing to your sense of fairness to ask that you recognize the good will your municipal partners have shown in taking these risks. You should not be penalizing them for the portion of the program with respect to which they placed their confidence in you. They were very good partners and invested their municipality's money.