Mr. Speaker, the hon. member made mention that I was speaking long-windedly and that perhaps I did not have a lot of substance. He asked me the same question three times. Perhaps the next time he could be a bit more detailed.
There are actually two questions. How is it to be distributed? It is my understanding—and I certainly will not hang my hat on this—that it is to be distributed based on a percentage of the grains that are being transported from the provinces. I will give a percentage breakdown. As I understand it, of the $175 million, $35 million per year for five years, Alberta will receive 19%, Saskatchewan will receive 62%, Manitoba will receive 18% and B.C. will receive .4%. This is how it is to be allocated for western Canada.
As for the excise taxes on fuel with respect to dollars put back into the highways of western Canada, it is absolutely deplorable the billions of dollars taken out of our economy and not put back into the road systems. I have stood in the House many times and asked for a long term, well thought out, well financed plan to work tripartite with municipalities, with provincial governments and with the federal government to put dollars back into the rural road infrastructure.
The government, unfortunately, does not see that expenditure in rural Manitoba or in rural Canada as a priority or even a requirement, which surprises me because the Minister of Transport has said that he is now an expert on rural Canada. I suspect that he would recognize that is a bigger issue than the $175 million over five years.