I want to acknowledge the work that the FCM did on this report in identifying the gap in the repairs that have to be done in existing infrastructure. It also identified the lack of capacity on the part of municipalities to do the asset management or proper planning, in addition to having proper data to analyze all that information. Some municipalities have done a good job, and some have not. It's these kinds of investments that get reduced when times are tough.
We want to look at the role the federal government can play, where municipalities can rely on us to have that support, where they can actually dedicate resources to do the kind of analysis that is necessary to understand the state of the infrastructure they have.
As MP Watts mentioned earlier, on the maintenance of the infrastructure, optimization of the infrastructure, and how we actually pay for that infrastructure, municipalities need to grapple with those questions in order to build long-term sustainable plans. We want to assist them by providing some sort of dedicated support that will enable them to draw from the federal capacity to do that kind of analysis.
If we don't do that.... I fundamentally believe in this. Our department officials have had quite a bit of back and forth discussions. We need to understand the state of infrastructure repairs in each community. Otherwise, we will never be able to deal with the big deficit that we have in infrastructure. We don't even know how big that deficit is. Different reports tell us different things. We need to have better data. We need to build the capacity of communities. Hopefully, through this budget process and discussions, we will be able to show some support to municipalities in order to do so.