Well they might have fixed up the rinks, but they also fixed up a lot of sewer projects. In the member's own riding I see that out of this infrastructure project the village of Ucluelet, the regional district of Comox, Strathcona, Port Alberni, and the village of Cumberland all realized sewer projects with their infrastructure money.
What I think we have to do is support what we have already in order to make it a better project and convince the member's own party that the environment counts. When they redraw their famous budget they should include the environment and sewer projects.
I agree that work has to be done, but it will only be done when we sit together with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, all the municipalities in the land and all the provinces so that future infrastructure projects, if we can find the collective money to put them together, will be geared firstly and hopefully almost exclusively to environmental needs.
Admittedly a lot of money has been spent on road repair and all other types of infrastructure projects, which were also necessary. However, maybe we can agree in the future that environmental needs will come first and foremost. In this I would support the member 100 per cent.
What we must do is first of all ensure that what we have already works and works well. What we have attempted here has been a significant achievement to put together for the first time a collective program of $6 billion at a very tough juncture for both provincial and federal governments as well as for municipal governments. It has been a big achievement, $2 billion spent on environmental projects.
I believe that we have the start of something constructive, and I respectfully suggest to the member that this is a solution for the future in what he is trying to do.