Here's the difference. The motion I propose is about making existing infrastructure dollars go further. Ms. Chow's proposal is to make more dollars available for infrastructure. Every single one of the proposals here is revenue-generating. There's nothing in here about how to deliver infrastructure more efficiently. That's not what the document proposes. All six points are about raising more money.
I'm not even commenting on the merits of the proposals; I am simply saying they are completely different in their purpose than the motion itself.
We could have a study on how to raise more money for municipalities; that is possible. However, I would submit to the committee that it's been done over and over again. We can easily invite municipal leaders here, and they will simply tell us they need more money, which is what they've been telling us for two decades. Basically, they've had everything they've asked for, and now there are new demands. We can hear them again, but I don't know what the benefit is to the national discussion of having the same conversation that we've had since 1992 when, at that time, the Liberal government took office in 1993 and started funding municipal and provincial infrastructure, something that hadn't been a practice of prior federal governments. Then in the 2000s we had the gas tax program come in, and then that gas tax program was doubled, and then capital funds available for municipal projects were vastly increased in the Building Canada program.
The issue of increasing money to municipal projects has been thoroughly treated by both governing parties over two decades, to the point at which municipalities have had an increase in their funding that vastly outpaces population growth and inflation. It's not even close.
I simply don't think there's any benefit in having yet another conversation about how much more taxpayers should have to spend on their municipalities. Instead, I think it would be more fruitful to study how we can make the infrastructure dollars we already ask of Canadian taxpayers go further in delivering the needs they want delivered. For us, this is about delivering the result, rather than filling the coffers .