As I understand it, Ms. Chow's proposal is to broaden the study to address the matters included in her document entitled "Infrastructure Funding Study Proposal". The proposal has to do with renewal of the Building Canada plan components with dedicated funding streams, the national infrastructure bank, vertical integration, the penny tax, and the reinvest value capture recommendation from Australia.
It seems to me that the amendment that Ms. Chow is proposing is almost the opposite of the committee report's purpose. The committee report seeks to make existing dollars go further. The Chow amendment seeks to make more dollars available for infrastructure. Municipalities have had a massive inflow of money in the last 20 years through decisions by both Liberal and Conservative governments. The money to municipalities has grown vastly more quickly than inflation and population growth combined. I'm can't think we're at a stage where we need to study how to increase taxes even more to fund municipalities.
The question we need to focus on is how to make the dollars that taxpayers are already injecting into municipalities go further. That was my goal. We've had the Federation of Canadian Municipalities come here and say they don't have enough money. They can't meet all their needs. That's not consistent with the enormous revenue increases that municipal jurisdictions have enjoyed. The problem can't be a lack of money. Municipalities were operating with far less money 20 years ago. The problem, therefore, has to be with how that money is being spent.
The purpose of the fourth committee report, as its title states, is to study “How Competition Can Make Infrastructure Dollars Go Further”. To achieve this purpose, the report was to consider red tape reduction, more bidders for federally funded projects, and increased private sector infrastructure. I think that would produce some findings that would be useful, as opposed to continuing the decade-long conversation about how we can just spend more.
Canadians didn't send us here to spend money; they sent us here to turn money into results. That's what I'm hoping to accomplish. I can't support the amendment that Ms. Chow proposes, but I'm certainly interested in working with her and other opposition members to make the study more beneficial to their interests.
Thanks.