Madam Speaker, I am not going to begin to respond to the specific question about some municipalities in the member's riding because I am not the minister responsible for the infrastructure program.
I would like to point out a couple of things to him. The previous member for his party who spoke on this issue made a comment that this sort of tripartite arrangement, federal-municipal-provincial, was unheard of. Certainly that is not the case in my province.
This kind of arrangement where the three levels of government come together to jointly share responsibility for major public works is quite common. Municipalities, Indian reserves and others are all participating in it.
On the allocation of funds, the one thing that is different about this government from the previous government is that these decisions are made on an open rational basis. In this case, it was a mixing of population and unemployment. There was a criteria set and not: How many Liberals did you elect?
This is unlike the previous government. I think we are further ahead for that kind of decision-making.