Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to support the Canadian Alliance motion that addresses this serious national issue. The motion reads:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should initiate immediate discussions with the provinces and territories to provide municipalities with a portion of the federal gas tax.
I want to explain why my party is introducing this motion. It is to address the infrastructure needs of municipalities and communities across this country. In May 2001 the Federation of Canadian Municipalities made the following statement:
Traditional sources of municipal spending have proven to be insufficient to prevent an accelerating decay in the state of municipal infrastructure. Billions of dollars are now needed to rehabilitate, upgrade or replace aging facilities and roads. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has long recognized the need for a concerted effort from all orders of government toward long-term solutions.
On a personal and local level, I met with the mayor of Leduc. Leduc is a city south of Edmonton along Highway 2 on the way to Calgary. It is a vibrant community of about 15,000 to 20,000 people. Its mayor is George Rogers, who is also president of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association. Mr. Rogers is an active local politician who speaks strongly on behalf of his community and its needs. He was talking about the growth of that area around the Edmonton International Airport and the fact that basically, as a municipal politician, he was hamstrung in the sources of revenue he could access to address his infrastructure needs.
He was calling on me and the provincial government to address it. I think from his perspective the feds have simply not stepped up to the plate enough to address these infrastructure needs and I certainly agree with him. Leduc is a community along the Edmonton-Calgary corridor which the Toronto-Dominion Bank pointed out as one of the fourth most vibrant economic corridors in North America. We are certainly going to have to address communities all along that corridor.
I also received a letter from Mayor Bill Smith from Edmonton in which he outlined Edmonton's infrastructure needs. He talked about what the city council had called on us to do. He wrote:
The City of Edmonton has long been advocating stable, sustainable and long term infrastructure investment and fully supports FCM's appeal to the Government of Canada to address the fiscal gap between municipal needs and available resources. At its July 15, 2003, meeting Edmonton City Council adopted the following motion:
“That the City of Edmonton urge Edmonton's Members of Parliament to support the Federation of Canadian Municipalities call for a long term financially sustainable infrastructure program”.
Canadian cities are faced with unlimited civic obligations and limited revenue options. To remain competitive in the world economy and maintain the Canadian standard of living, it is imperative that the Government of Canada implement revenue sharing options to secure long term infrastructure funding for municipalities.
I think that states the case very well.
Further to this, besides the calls from local politicians in my area, the TD Bank Financial Group, the Conference Board of Canada, and the Province of Alberta's Future Summit have released reports in which infrastructure was identified as the most significant issue facing Canadian cities. In fact, the TD Financial Group stated in April 2002:
Canadian cities are beginning to show severe signs of strain after decades of rapid economic and population growth. In many cities, water systems, sewers, and public transportation all require massive new investment, but cash strapped municipalities--who have been asked to take over a growing number of responsibilities from the federal and provincial government in recent years--are in no position to deliver.
I would like to turn to the position of the federal government up to this point. On February 19, 2003, I questioned the finance minister and stated:
Each year Ottawa collects $4.5 billion in gas taxes, but only 5% of that money is returned to Canadians in the form of federal highway funding. The government is ripping off Canadians at the gas pump and not returning benefits to them... The current situation is completely unacceptable to all Canadians. The government has a choice to make, either it dedicates a portion of the federal fuel tax or it transfers the tax to the provinces to allow them to make the funding decisions to address their infrastructure needs.
I asked if the Minister of Finance would consider vacating a portion of the federal gas tax on provinces to allow the provinces room to address their infrastructure needs. The response I received from the Minister of Finance was very clear, “No, absolutely not”. He then went on to state:
Responsibility that the provinces have for areas which are in their jurisdiction is one for which they have entirely the same capacity to raise revenue as does the federal government. Our revenue goes into the consolidated revenue fund and we make choices as to how to spend it.
The Canadian Alliance tried to address this situation. We tried to be a responsible opposition party by putting forward a motion in June which stated:
That, in the opinion of this House, Canada's infrastructure needs should be met by a regime of stable funding; and that accordingly, this House call on the government to reduce federal gasoline taxes conditional on an agreement with provinces that, with the creation of this tax room, provinces would introduce a special tax to fund infrastructure in provincial and municipal jurisdictions.
This would have addressed the infrastructure needs in Edmonton and Leduc and other communities across this country. Unfortunately, this motion was defeated by the Liberals with 180 nays and 35 yeas, obviously Canadian Alliance members, and 14 members paired. For those who are viewing this debate today, paired members are those members who do not show up to vote.
It is interesting to note who was a paired member that day. One of the members who was paired was the member for LaSalle--Émard. It is interesting to note that this is one of the primary issues for the new Liberal leader. In fact, he did not even make an effort at that time to come into the House and express a view on whether we should have stable infrastructure funding. Frankly--