Thank you for inviting me to appear before you this evening to discuss the government's infrastructure priorities.
Thank you very much, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here with you this evening.
I'll just share that this committee is where I spent the first few years as a member of Parliament after the 2015 election. It was my top choice at the time. I feel very fortunate to be able to serve in the capacity that I currently do. I should point out that Mr. Badawey and Mr. Iacono in particular sat alongside me. It's good to see you guys again.
I'll be short with my comments to open so we can save time for questions and get through as many as committee members would like to have.
I'll start with the very basic premise that investing in infrastructure across this country is incredibly important. It creates jobs in the short term—typically good-paying jobs in industries that provide meaningful work to people. It also leaves communities better off, with assets that make the places that we all call home more livable, sustainable and prosperous.
The reality is that over the past eight years, we've seen a significant increase in the scale of public investments and infrastructure by the Government of Canada. This was principally through the investing in Canada infrastructure plan, which has led to many billions of dollars putting many thousands of Canadians to work and is helping communities in every region of the country build out their communities in ways that serve the needs of their residents.
There are a few specific areas that I think have been important to the work we've done as a government and that will continue to be important in the years ahead.
The first is public transit. I won't regale you with the details of the specific number of projects or dollars spent. I'll only indicate that when we invest in transit, we build communities that work more effectively for the people who call them home. We've seen, in small communities like mine and in big cities across the country, investments that are allowing people to better access the places where they go to work, the places where they live and the services that they rely upon.
The kinds of stories that I'm sure we've all heard in our constituency offices over our time as parliamentarians demonstrate the importance of public infrastructure, and transit in particular. I can't help but think of one of the very first meetings I took in my constituency office where a gentleman told me that he was unable to find work because he didn't have access to transit in our community. He was limited in his job hunt to places he could walk to, because he didn't have access to a car. These are the kinds of social and economic issues that people struggle with at an individual level when they go without the services that so many of us too often take for granted.
By making record investments in public transit, we can more easily facilitate people accessing economic opportunities for themselves, pursuing the activities they enjoy and accessing the services that their families rely upon.
Infrastructure is so much more than public transit. I think about the water and waste-water investments, which rarely capture the public's imagination, but when you deal with a water line that has burst, you know you need it.
