On the gas tax question, there is no question that the gas tax is a cornerstone to the ongoing support for municipalities and municipal infrastructure into the future--absolutely. We would like to underline this and to certainly acknowledge the governments, past and present, for initiating the gas tax and extending it and making it permanent. It was extremely important.
However, one thing that is important is that, over the long term, the gas tax is not tied to economic growth; it will diminish in value over time. The second is that the gas tax alone is not sufficient, in our view, to support the long-term infrastructure needs of the country. While it is an important part, it can't be the sole part of the long-term plan.
The second question you asked was with respect to application forms. There is no doubt that this program and the administrative elements of this program have been streamlined in ways that are very significant for our members. With Minister Baird, and now with Minister Strahl, we've had a discussion about doing a bit of a “lessons learned” to analyze how this model can be adapted so that it becomes the model, in some form, for future programming.
We have thanked Minister Baird many times for his work in streamlining that administrative process. We thank the bureaucrats as well for their work in making the application process much more effective and the payments more effective.
Where we have heard—and it's not frequent—about issues of delays in payments, we don't know whether it's a provincial or a federal issue. It's a complicated process, but certainly in comparison to the traditional cost-shared program, this is groundbreaking in some of its elements, which we look forward to having in future programs.