Mr. Speaker, the member from the Bloc Quebecois made excellent comments in his speech today. I was born and raised in Saskatchewan and my heart goes out to the families who lost family members and to everyone in Saskatchewan over this issue.
Since I was elected in 1997, I have been arguing very strongly for full funding of basic infrastructure, such as roads, water and sewers. The tragedies that we see happening now are due to the fact that small towns and cities cannot tax their people enough in order to build the infrastructure that is required for basic human needs. Clean water is certainly one of those needs.
What does the member believe the priorities should be? There are many examples. I believe that federal and provincial governments should not be in the business of deciding who should or should not be getting government money for business. They should be dealing with what the public needs, and that is basic public infrastructure.
The massive use of moneys for gun control is an example. We also had an example in Manitoba where a person was paid $15,000 to hang up dead rabbits in the trees south of Winnipeg as an artistic endeavour. That was bad and the people of Manitoba complained. This year that person received another $5,000. To me that is not priority spending.
Does the Bloc member believe that public infrastructure needs more money? We know we have an infrastructure program in Canada right now partially funded by the federal government. Should the level of funding from the federal government not be increased from $3 billion to $4 billion for public infrastructure?