Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister Sohi, for appearing in front of us today.
I first have a comment about your infrastructure plan, and second I have a few questions about the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority and federal bridge policy in general.
My comment on infrastructure is that during the last election you promised, among other things, three things in particular for infrastructure. The first was that you would run deficits of no more than $10 billion a year in order to fund historic investments in infrastructure, which was the second commitment, and the third was that any unspent money, any lapsed money, would be transferred into the gas tax fund to top it up.
Instead, what I see here in the estimates and also in the most recent budget is that your deficits are much larger than $10 billion a year and that you're not spending the money that you promised on infrastructure. In fact, last week the Parliamentary Budget Officer said approximately one-quarter, 25%, of the money promised is not being spent. That money, in the government's language, has lapsed and is being reprofiled for future years—much of it after the next election, I would note—so two of these commitments are not being met.
The third commitment is also not being met. While there was some modest transfer in the last while into the gas tax fund of lapsed, unspent money, you're not fulfilling your commitment to transfer everything that was lapsed, everything that was unspent, into the gas tax fund to be transferred to municipalities across this country. I just make note of that, because I think Canadians clearly voted for that in the last election. They elected a majority government, but this commitment, these three commitments, are not being lived up to.
I have a few questions about the Windsor-Detroit Bridge Authority. Thank you for the information that the proponent is going to be selected shortly and that construction will begin in the fall of this year. That's good news.
I have a few questions, though, regarding the general policy of the government with respect to the tolling of federal crown corporation bridges.
We built, some years ago, a bridge crossing the Northumberland Strait to Prince Edward Island, which cost in excess of $1 billion. That bridge was in part to uphold our constitutional obligation to P.E.I.'s entry into Confederation to provide a year-round link to the mainland. The people who use that bridge have to pay $46.50 to cross it. I've actually used it a number of times, and it's expensive. It's not cheap to cross. You pay the toll one way, but it's still an expensive toll to pay.
We have a proposed toll, which is yet to be announced, on the Gordie Howe bridge, which is going to be quite high, I think, because the costs are now estimated to be upwards of four and a half billion dollars.
Then we have a third bridge that is also owned by a federal crown corporation. It crosses the St. Lawrence River, connecting the south shore of Montreal to the Island of Montreal, and that bridge was once tolled. That toll paid for the construction of the original bridge. We're now building a replacement bridge, but there's no toll on that bridge.
I don't see how that's fair to the people that I represent in Wellington County, Halton region, and southwestern Ontario, who are being asked now to pay the toll for the most important bridge crossing in this country by far, the Windsor-Detroit bridge crossing. I don't see how it's fair to the people of Prince Edward Island, who have to pay this toll of $46.50 to cross to the mainland when in another region of the country there is no toll because the government made a decision that makes no sense to waive the toll just for the residents of that particular region.
I'd like the minister to explain the rationale behind federal bridge policy and tolling.