Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses. It's great to see you. I know that the FCM has been here before.
Sandra, it's great to see you again. I'm not sure if the clerk has informed you, but if you appear before this committee one more time, then your fourth appearance is free. I think there's something in the standing orders that....
It's great to have all of you here to help inform this committee as we deal with some very difficult and challenging issues but also issues that are very important and very necessary for our communities. I really appreciate the testimony and some of the materials that your organizations have put out in the past.
I can tell you that on the side of the Conservative Party, we believe that infrastructure is very important. That's why we made a rock-solid commitment in the last election campaign to maintain the levels of funding for infrastructure, and it's why we've been particularly disappointed at the abysmal record that the current government has in terms of getting projects built.
I put a question on the order paper just recently, and it was just answered yesterday, actually. It shows that the department of infrastructure let $8 billion lapse. That was between the time this government formed in 2015 to just before the last election in 2019.
Eight billion dollars of infrastructure dollars went unspent. That was money that was committed and that municipalities were told they would be eligible for, but the department's own records show that the money didn't flow. Of course, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which was supposed to unleash billions of dollars of private-sector investment, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, has resulted in no private-sector dollars being committed to these projects.
That's why I think this study is so timely. As you know, we need to find a way to fix what's going on, to right the ship and actually get some of these projects built.
Maybe I'll start with Mr. Gamble.
You talked about the top-down decisions. I just want to give you an opportunity to speak about that again. One of the things that....
I represent Regina, a community that has its own particular challenges and needs. It's very different from Vancouver; it's very different from Halifax. In speaking with mayors over the course of my career, I've heard it's sometimes very difficult because a government in Ottawa will set terms, set parameters and set filters. There are very real needs that the people of Regina need to address, and their tax dollars are going to fund these infrastructure programs—they're paying into them—yet many times the City of Regina will say, “We don't really fit into this box because of our size and because of our geographical location.”
I just want to give you an opportunity to expand on that: the need for local flexibility and not a one-size-fits-all approach.