Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Clearly, my first question is for Mr. Demers.
Mr. Demers, during your opening remarks, and even in response to the questions from my various colleagues, you strongly emphasized the importance of having a flexible federal gas tax fund.
What actually surprised me initially, when we talked about the gas tax amendments, was the denial that there had been any change to the federal gas tax fund. However, after careful reading, we realized that there had in fact been a change. Although the change was relatively minor on the surface, it made a major difference.
Let me give you an example. Saying that a program has priority items, but that the money can still be used for other purposes, is the difference between saying it's exclusive and it's non-exclusive. We see, for example, city halls, fire stations, municipal garages and warehouses that cannot be built and cannot be supported by the federal gas tax fund because of these changes.
We, on the other hand, fully support that approach. We have had the opportunity to speak to Minister McKenna about this on many occasions, but each time we came up against a sort of non-answer.
Could you tell me how important this is to you?