Thank you for that question.
Through you, Madam Chair, I want to assure this committee that no infrastructure dollars from the existing funding or from the new funding are allocated or are thought of being allocated for the Champlain Bridge. The cost of the Champlain Bridge project is already built into the fiscal framework. The tolling revenue would not have gone to pay for the bridge. It would have gone into the general revenues of the government.
The reason we made a commitment to remove the toll from the Champlain Bridge is that it is a replacement bridge, not a new bridge, and it was done without any consultation with local communities, the local mayors, or the local business community. The communities impacted by the toll were not consulted in the design of the toll.
We are going to live up to that commitment to remove the toll from the Champlain Bridge, but there will not be any impact from that on the infrastructure dollars that are available to communities, whether they're existing dollars or whether they're the new $60 billion, because everything related to the cost of the Champlain Bridge already has been built into the fiscal framework.