Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed in the member's speech. If this is how he is going to start the new House I do not think we have much to look forward to.
He begins by saying that he is bringing us a message from his constituents. He is obviously very proud to be a member of parliament, as I am. He obviously believes in representing the people of his riding as well as he can.
However, in discussing the first two infrastructure programs he proceeded to malign the villages, townships, towns and cities of my riding, because within the guidelines of those first two infrastructure programs in the 1993 and 1997 parliaments, the choices were made by the municipalities themselves.
He also maligns the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. That was the design program municipalities specifically asked for and have asked for again this time. If he were to go to my riding he would discover that the elected representatives of my villages looked very carefully at their infrastructure needs. They effectively defined what was infrastructure and what was priority infrastructure at that time for their communities.
He went on to mention highways and water and sewage. What is the point when a small municipality that has recently spent large sums of money on its highways is given money to spend on highways? If there is a municipality that has recently invested in its water supply and has gone to great lengths to develop a good water system and a system of checking it, what is the point of giving that municipality infrastructure money for water?
Putting it another way, why should a municipality which has not done that get the benefit of a program simply because it is behind in checking its highways or water and sewage?
I believe that the purpose of this type of infrastructure program—and I do understand that there are others—is to deal with the smallest units in our system, which are the villages and townships of my riding and of the member's riding. I hope the design of this program is the same, because only the design of this program can do it. No one in Ottawa knows what the village of Havelock in my riding needs today. We just do not, but we can listen to the villages and townships and respond as well as we are able to with flexible programs that allow them to make the decisions.
I welcome the hon. member's comments. In his riding, in the 1993 and 1997 programs, was someone other than the municipalities themselves deciding what was infrastructure?