Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I also support this study going forward as amended.
I think what we've heard so far this afternoon is how important road, bridge and highway infrastructure are to community members right across the country. I would ask all members to take the approach to this hearing—on which we agree—that this is a serious matter and that we are aiming to have a constructive outcome of this session.
What I would ask also is that members' comments such as the opening diatribe against our environment minister not be part of the discussion. I ask that we not have the repeated name-calling, using repeated adjectives of our environment minister, and that we not have the feigned outrage that we heard in these opening remarks of Mr. Strahl. I ask that we recognize that the massive investments that our government has put into road, highway and bridge infrastructure—as laid out by Mr. Bittle and Mr. Badawey—are actually very substantive investments in infrastructure across the country in urban, rural, suburban and remote areas alike.
Finally, as someone who was in the chamber for the entire 10 years of Mr. Harper's government, I am very aware that in the last three years of a Conservative government, the budget for infrastructure was cut to a mere $500 million a year for each of the last three years. Five hundred million may sound like a lot of money to those watching these proceedings, but you have heard about the billions and billions that our government has invested to support Canadians with their road, highway and bridge infrastructure.
I'll just put that $500 million in the 2012, 2013 and 2014 budgets by the previous Conservative government into perspective. Five hundred million dollars is the total funding for one SkyTrain line extension from Cambie Street to the airport. That one investment, which was made by former prime minister Martin, was a $500-million investment. Prime Minister Harper allocated $500 million for all infrastructure, including housing, right across the country, from end to end and top to bottom, for three years in a row.
That huge deficit of infrastructure.... Mind you, it may have been made up for in the public's perception by a Liberal investment and the signage that suggested that the Conservative economic action plan was working “here in your community”. That signage was in place of actual investment, leaving a major deficit of infrastructure investment, which our government has been filling since we were elected in 2015.
I just wanted to provide a little bit of that corporate memory, that history, from someone who was elected in 2008 and has watched the various investments of previous Conservative governments shrivel to almost nothing. I've seen the investments in road, bridge and highway infrastructure, as well as housing and other forms of infrastructure, bloom under the current Liberal government and our Prime Minister.