Mr. Speaker, we have an infrastructure program, and any decisions made under this program are made jointly by the municipalities involved and by the provincial government.
When we introduced the first Infrastructure Program, the Quebec government and Quebec City decided to build a convention centre in Quebec City, and the federal government invested $26 million. At the time, people said they might need an arena. The mayor of Quebec City, as reported in the media this morning, said no, Quebec City's priority was a convention centre.
In the case of Winnipeg and the Government of Manitoba, $15 million had not been allocated, and they asked us to allocate them for the building an infrastructure in Winnipeg, an arena.
There are several precedents in this respect. In Alberta, the government decided to invest $5 million in the arena in Edmonton and $4 million in the arena in Calgary, all federal money.
We respect provincial jurisdictions. We make the money available to the various governments. A total of $15 million comes from the Infrastructure Program. As we all know, the Pan-American Games will be held in Winnipeg two years from now, and they need certain facilities, so they want to combine the facilities for the Pan-American Games with the possibility to build an arena. So if the city and the province want a new infrastructure, they can take the money that is there. There is no new money for this program. This is money allocated to Manitoba which had not yet been distributed.