Mr. Speaker, when the Liberal government came in, it started the infrastructure programs. There was no such program in the recent past. In Yukon it was very successful. There was a one-third sharing arrangement so that the municipalities, the territorial government and the federal government each put in a third.
As far as I remember, every single municipality in Yukon had access to those programs, whether they were for hockey arenas, sewer and water, or fixing roads damaged by permafrost. To indicate how bad it was, one of our communities replaced sewer pipes that were made out of wood staves. That illustrates how old the infrastructure was. The problem in the previous rounds of infrastructure funding was that it was done on a per capita basis. That of course does not go very far in the north.
As I said earlier, we have permafrost. We have very few taxpayers and they are very far apart. A couple of years ago the finance committee, and thanks to members of all parties who were on the finance committee, realized that type of formula did not work for infrastructure in the north. An increase in infrastructure funding has been fought for since I was at the Association of Yukon Communities and subsequently by president Glen Everitt, executive director Jim Slater and all the municipalities and the FCM. In the most recent round for strategic infrastructure, they were successful in receiving a base amount for the northern communities for infrastructure.
I am hoping the strategic infrastructure fund will not specifically be used for our Canada winter games contribution. There are all sorts of lists. Each territory has brought forward lists of millions of dollars for areas where infrastructure funding would be very helpful. It will improve the quality of life so that we can recruit and maintain workers, including health care professionals, for the projects that we need in Yukon.