Madam Chair, I totally agree with my colleague on that. I mean, we faced an era in which there was a decade of underinvestment in infrastructure. Anyone in that field will understand that you then need to invest exponentially. That's why we put together a historic plan of more than $180 billion to address issues that Canadians watching us would understand. When we're talking about public transit, for example, I think the people who live in urban areas in our country would understand that it was about time we made these historic investments to allow people greater fluidity.
In terms of the big picture, as I always tell my colleagues, infrastructure is key in our country. Modern, resilient green infrastructure will help us attract investment and talent. For me, when we invest in infrastructure, we invest in not only our current prosperity but future prosperity. In terms of our plan, we asked ourselves this: What is one of the biggest challenges we have to tackle as human beings? It's climate change, so when we're building infrastructure, people are watching us. We understand that we cannot do things today the way we did them in 1980. We need to build in a way that will be resilient but also green. Canadians expect this when we are investing in this.
I can give you the example of Saanich. I was in B.C. recently at the Commonwealth pool. They decided to change from fossil fuels to biomass. By doing so, they reduced their energy costs by 90%. That's the type of project we want in communities. You're improving lives and at the same time you're reducing your carbon footprint.
When I think about social infrastructure, as the member from Trois-Rivières was saying before, this is also about making sure.... You know, infrastructure means different things to different people. If you're in an urban area, you may think about a bridge or a road. If you are in a rural community, you may think about a community centre or broadband access. You may think about cellphone coverage. I come from a riding where about half the riding has no cellphone coverage and no Internet coverage.
Obviously, when you talk about infrastructure, it touches the lives of people. When we talk about rural and northern communities and the way we structure it, to the member's point, I can provide another example of why we have a stream that is very specific to rural and northern areas. When I was in Saskatchewan recently, people were telling me that if we gave them the funds to increase, for example, the length of the runway about 200 metres or 300 metres, they could land bigger planes, reduce greenhouse gas emissions with the fewer planes needed, and reduce the price of food by about 50% in northern communities.
That's why we have projects that are tailored to the needs of Canadians across the country.