Mr. Speaker, I am going to bring a Saskatchewan perspective to this discussion and probably one from Manitoba as well. I remember that a few years ago the president of Agricore United was appalled at the huge amount of money that the federal government was extracting out of the agricultural communities of Manitoba and Saskatchewan because of their high dependency on transportation and the use of gasoline and diesel fuel. It was a huge amount, a disproportionate amount, and virtually nothing ever came back to those rural transportation systems.
I know that feeling. Where I come from, when the people talk about a national infrastructure program they think of pork barrel politics, helping out Liberal friends, or spending east of Ontario. That is what the people in my part of the world tend to think. They are very suspicious of any federal government program.
I have a question for the member from Alberta who gave such a good speech on this topic. Is it preferable on a user pay principle to give the taxing power back to the provinces, which I think under the Constitution is where it should be under section 92, direct taxes, or is it better to let some big federal bureaucracy dominated by Liberals decide how infrastructure money is allocated across the country?