Through you, Madam Chair, as I said earlier, we have heard from municipalities across the nation that their capacity to match one-third of the funding required for any project is very limited. As you know, and as many of the people who have been part of the municipal councils or pay attention to municipal needs know, they collect less than about 10ยข of every tax dollar that we Canadians pay in taxes.
We understand that limitation in their capacity to match funding, but what would that additional support be from the federal government? We want to design that in consultation with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. We want to do that in consultation with the cities, as well as the provinces. We can provide additional support, but there are more resources required at the other end, too. For example, provinces still need to contribute. Even though the municipal portion may go down, provinces still need to be at the table.
The approach I am taking is not a top-heavy approach where I impose the solutions. I think that would fail. What we need to do is work with them and see what the appropriate level of support is from the federal government, and then do that in consultation and collaboration with them.