Madam Speaker, my hon. colleague asked earlier about New Brunswick taxpayers in relation to paying tolls for highways and where the money was going.
The member certainly knows that we on this side will investigate every morsel of information that he has put before us because we want to be clear and articulate in what we say. He does understand the issue.
Under the Constitution of Canada highways are a provincial responsibility.
In the instance of the new Fredericton to Moncton highway, the federal government did contribute a portion of the highway's overall costs. New Brunswick has chosen to operate the new highway as a public-private partnership with the Maritime Road Development Corporation using tolls.
The hon. member should note that the Government of New Brunswick has indicated that the federal contribution was already deducted against the cost base used to establish the tolls and the annual provincial payment for the remaining capital costs. In effect, the federal funds have reduced the overall capital costs to this project for New Brunswick taxpayers.
The concerns raised about tolls and federal contributions certainly deserve further study. We will grant the member that. Transport Canada as usual is providing some leadership in developing a future policy on tolls in the event the federal government were to launch a new national highway program.
However, with respect to the hon. member's allegation of inappropriate federal spending, I would like to quote directly from the auditor general's report: “We found in all the negotiated agreements that the program objectives, funding levels and cost sharing ratios to be maintained throughout the life of the agreement reflected the government's directives”.