Mr. Speaker, I will have great difficulty following my colleague. I should have offered him my 10 minutes as he was doing such a great job.
I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to the budget. It is an important one as we all know. I congratulate the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister for having the foresight and the vision to recognize some of the issues and concerns that we have all been talking about.
We have managed to get a balanced budget in spite of the pressures of September 11. This is the fifth time in 50 years that we have been able to have a balanced budget. That is very significant and it is something that we should be proud of as Canadians.
Canada is the only G-7 country that has managed to balance its books this year. That is a strong indication, contrary to what some of my colleagues across the Chamber may say. The government is fiscally responsible and is doing a good job of managing its books. We are constantly looking for better ways to do everything. That is a compliment to the team we have over here.
We are delivering a proportionately larger economic stimulus package than the United States. We must always keep in perspective that we are not as big as the United States. We need to applaud and be proud when we can put together a package that would stimulate the economy more than what the U.S. is doing.
I will concentrate on the urban regions as chair of the Prime Minister's task force on urban regions. I will share what we have been hearing across the country. First, I congratulate my colleagues who sit on the caucus task force with me on the great job they have been doing over the last six months as we toured the country, listened to hundreds of people and met with a variety of organizations.
We met about 270 organizations and talked with people in large urban regions. We identified issues, problems and the role of the federal government when it came to trying to find solutions.
One of the things they wanted to see was leadership from the federal government. They felt frustrated with the current system. They expect the federal government to show leadership on many of these issues and to be the one to call the parties to the table to negotiate a solution to any ongoing problem. They did not want to be left alone out there.
The issue of public transportation continued to be raised. Should we be in public transit? It was not a role the federal government played previously. It has traditionally been a provincial responsibility. It was one of the questions that needed to be answered.
People were looking to governments and their partners for solutions to transportation gridlock in our large cities. Some people were taking an hour or an hour and a half to get home at night. We need to look at air quality and the whole deterioration in the quality of life that people are feeling in some of these large urban regions.
The issue of keeping not only goods moving but keeping people moving in our cities, across our highways and our roads is very important.
Housing was raised in every urban region we visited. I congratulate the minister for being able to put together a package that was acceptable to most of the provinces. I hope Ontario will come to the table to help meet the important need that we all recognize. People have a need for housing so that their families can be stable and their children can grow up in a safe, clean environment.
The brownfields issue was mentioned in the budget. I am pleased with that because there is an enormous problem in that regard. It gives us an opportunity to deal with the issue of urban sprawl by taking some of those lands and using them for everything from recreation to housing. It would help to decrease some of the urban sprawl.
There are issues in and around our aboriginal communities. We are looking at solutions to help them up and not necessarily to help them stay where they are.They want empowerment and they are looking to us to assist them in the aboriginal communities.
Air and water quality are big issues that we heard a lot about. There was also the issue of keeping Canadians safe with a good quality of life in cities throughout our country.
The task force communicated all of these issues to the Minister of Finance. I must say I was very pleased, as were my colleagues on the task force, that these issues were touched on and addressed in the budget.
We must also acknowledge the work that the FCM has been doing with us in making sure that the urban region agenda is on the federal highlights so that we can find answers to some of these problems. Certainly the budget recognized the important role of our urban regions and the economic and social fabric of the country. It is critical that it do well so that we will all do well.
In so doing, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister have put together a brand new program with a $2 billion strategic infrastructure foundation. We will have an opportunity to work with private partners on large urban projects.
The funding of subways and a variety of light rail transit systems and so on in our cities are big ticket items. The cities cannot do it on their own. They need senior levels or other levels of government to assist them in achieving their goals. That is important. We all recognize the importance of having a solid infrastructure in our cities.
There was talk about highways, overpasses, bridges and so on in Montreal. All of that is critical to the movement of goods and people. Again, this new $2 billion strategic infrastructure foundation will begin to answer some of those problems we have to deal with. Another $600 million was put into highway infrastructure which will help with the highway problems and the pressures of moving people and goods. People will not be wasting their time sitting in traffic jams not being able to move their goods and deciding that they will not stay in business here but will go elsewhere.
The doubling of the green municipal enabling fund and the green municipal investment fund are initiatives of the government with the FCM. The FCM has been extremely successful in coming up with innovative solutions to problems and assisting our large urban regions. We all recognize that the urban regions are the crucial drivers of our economy and are critical for our success in the future.
The focus on security also speaks to this issue. If our borders are not secure and our trucks cannot get through in a timely way, our economy will be choked. The efficient movement of goods is crucial to the success of our regions.
There is the broadband investment to connect Canadians. We are connecting all Canadians. We were the first country to connect all of our schools and libraries through the Internet. Those are very important initiatives. I am glad more money is being put into it.
There is support for the police. There is a fair amount of money in the budget for CSIS and the RCMP so that they can have more integration and more co-ordination of all of the services we are dealing with. That continues on and we are continuing to put money into those areas.
Those are good investments. They will allow our country to grow. They will get us through the difficult times ahead.
As well we are looking at how we control our budget with the pressures we will be facing and pay down the debt. We do not want to leave our children with an enormous debt that they have to carry. We are building a nation that is prosperous for all of us.
An investment of another $200 million has gone into universities, as well as the additional money for CIHR and research. The health committee has been talking a lot about research, the need to do stem cell research and so on. All of the money that we are putting into research will hopefully find the solutions to some of the major diseases that affect thousands of people in Canada today. Some $25 million has gone toward the issue of fetal alcohol syndrome, which affects a lot of our children, especially in the aboriginal community. That is another avenue we are looking at.
We hear lots of rhetoric from the other side. That is the way the game goes on. We are supposed to be debating issues, but a lot of it is rhetoric.
This is a good budget. It provides money for the future and money to grow. It is good for our economy and good for Canada. I congratulate everyone involved.