For both CUTA and you, Mr. Mayor, or your councillors, I have essentially the same question.
Infrastructure Canada was here the other day. In terms of the amount of funding that is put into the building Canada fund or to the new public transit fund, it seems very much that these are arbitrary numbers without a view to any policy objectives, except the notion that it's all good for the economic competitiveness of Canada. But the actual quantum, or the number, the funding level that comes out of this process, doesn't seem to have any particular relation to any policy objectives.
Let me start with CUTA. I understand you're at $18 billion now. As the urban affairs critic, infrastructure critic, and deputy critic for transport for our caucus, I talk to a lot of your members, and you've facilitated some of those conversations. The ones I talk to all say, “Well, that's not enough money”.
I understand you've picked this five-year notion of what's unfunded over the next five years, projects that are backlogged. If you were free to think and provide advice to the federal government—and this question is for you, Mr. Mayor, about infrastructure generally—what kind of policy objectives would you put in place to determine the amount of funding that ought to be provided by the federal government?
Does that question make sense to you?