Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, this government is committed to working collaboratively with municipal governments and the provinces. That is why we have had very successful infrastructure programs over the years.
The member talks about off-loading by the federal government. He talks about trying to balance our books on the backs of the provinces. I would point out to him that the former PQ minister of municipal affairs, Mr. Trudel, on November 28, 1996, withdrew a 43% rebate to municipal governments in the province of Quebec without consultation. This impacted $76 million on those municipal governments throughout the province, and it meant that those municipalities which depended on this rebate, because of the harmonization of the QST and the GST, had to slash services.
The dependency clearly is that under the PQ in Quebec there was no guarantee of solid funding. Under the national infrastructure programs, this government in joint partnership and with the announcement by the Minister of Finance in February of a 10 year program, which will be of course added to overtime and in which we will be working with our municipal and provincial partners, at least we will have that guarantee.
I would like to have the member respond to the fact that in the province of Quebec under the PQ there was never stable funding by that government and in fact municipal governments. I could quote Mr. Vaillancourt, the UMQ president at the time, denouncing that unilateral move.