I think that's a really important point.
I'm someone who cares greatly about taxpayer dollars. I believe that every dollar that we invest has to get multiple outcomes. What does it have to get, especially right now when we're in an economic crisis, the greatest crisis since the Great Depression? We need jobs. We've committed, as a government, to creating a million jobs. We need growth.
We also need more inclusive communities and better infrastructure. By “inclusive”, I don't just mean indigenous communities and racialized communities; I also mean that rural areas need good infrastructure.
Three, we need to make sure that we're tackling climate change, because climate change is real. Also, I just think that with regard to this idea that tackling climate change is negative for the economy, we just have to look at the economy down south. The United States is going big in taking action on climate change, because that's where the opportunities are. That's where the growth is. That's where the jobs are. That's what we need to be doing.
It is worrying, though, to think that if you had a Conservative government, it would cut infrastructure dollars. This is absolutely the wrong time to do that. We need to be investing in infrastructure, and if you look at what we've done since the pandemic hit in March.... Every single week, my department has to bear with me, because I go through every single project that we are reviewing. We've approved 1,864 projects worth $2.85 billion since last March.
Do you know how many projects the Conservative government approved during its four-year majority? Nine hundred and seventy-five projects. In one year, in the middle of a pandemic, during a minority government, we've approved 1,864 while the previous Conservative government in four years only approved 975 projects.
Our projects are across the country, in Conservative ridings, in Bloc ridings, in NDP ridings and in Liberal ridings, and in rural communities and urban communities. These projects are helping create good jobs, growing their economies, tackling climate change and improving the quality of life of Canadians. That's what we want to do.
In the greatest recession since the Great Depression, and with a climate crisis, we need to be building back better, and that is what we are going to continue to do. That is what I'm going to continue to do every day, and we're going to be working with the Canada Infrastructure Bank looking in leveraging private sector investment to get more and better infrastructure built. I think we will look back at this time and say, “The pandemic was terrible, but guess what? We managed to make a transformational, once-in-a-generation difference in building infrastructure that is making a huge difference in the lives of Canadians, to our prosperity, to our competitiveness, and also in tackling climate change.”