I could give you other bits of evidence by people in control of municipal water supplies who say, “Well, it takes years. You'll never get sick from that.” I do think there's an educational process needed.
However, on the private part—and I know I'm close to my time—one of the things we developed in the City of Hamilton, and other cities, Ottawa, Guelph, and London, was a lone program for people with marginal incomes who lived in old houses with lead pipe service lines. They could borrow the money and pay it back on their water bill over 10 years.
Hamilton has cuts in the asphalt all over the older parts of the city; I believe we do something like 500 of those a year. Would Infrastructure Canada consider supporting these kinds of programs in a municipality?
I was struck by the phrase “local decision-makers...know what's best”. We have absolutely positive results in our city with this program. Every year, more service lines are taken out, the money is returned, and it keeps going. The City of Toronto turned it down. I have a copy of the council meeting where the mayor said, “I have trouble buying it because I've just seen too many fiascoes come out of this place.”
I don't think that was the best decision. I would like to ask if you would consider that a portion of the infrastructure money be allowed to be used by cities for a program like that. Do you think that would find compliance within your world?