The Canadian Taxpayers Federation takes a slightly harder line than our colleagues do. We believe that the federal government's involvement in funding municipal infrastructure has been bad for the country.
The United States has been held up as an example. Since the financial meltdown in 2008, the United States has borrowed 50 times as much money at the federal level as the Canadian federal government has—50 times. Over $6 trillion in public debt has been added and squandered at the federal level by the Government of the United States.
At the federal level in Canada, the corrosive effect of federal infrastructure funding is that voters receive goods they're not paying for. They're being paid for with borrowed money. There is no cost benefit to that new sewer pipe, the new curling rink roof, all the stuff that federal pork-barrelling is paying for. The net effect of it is that voters, ratepayers at a municipal level, are no longer able to give credit or assess blame for well-managed and poorly managed infrastructure projects, because every sign has the federal flag, the province's flag, and the city's coat of arms. Every time you dig a ditch in this country, there's an MP, an MPP or an MLA, a city councillor, and a mayor standing there, and everyone is taking the credit.
It's an unconstitutional way of doing business. The federal government is using its spending power Trudeau-style to invade an area in which they have no specific expertise. Instead of focusing your attention on federal transportation issues like the St. Lawrence Seaway, oceans, military procurement, replacing the air force, and so forth, you're mucking around in areas where the feds have no specific expertise and nothing to add.