Yes, the Prime Minister has the new museum in his riding and it goes on and on.
But there are other areas. There are what we consider to be misdirected priorities. Business grants would be one of them. The NDP used to have a saying: corporate welfare. The NDP wanted to cancel corporate welfare. In my view corporate welfare is still alive and doing very well. Quite frankly, the Canadian Alliance has a problem with corporate welfare too. We think that if Canadians want to buy shares in Bombardier, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney or all of these companies, let them buy shares. They can do that, but why should the Government of Canada be giving these huge companies taxpayers' money?
The government has a very funny program called Technology Partnerships Canada. The government calls it a repayable contribution. Now what is the world is that? At one time the government used to just give them the money through grants, but it had to dress this up somehow because the public was catching on and did not want the government doing that. So now they call it a repayable contribution.
What is that? We have not seen much on the repayable part since that TPC program went into effect in 1995. In fact, there has been only a 2% return on investment for the Government of Canada. We think there is a lot of room for the government to find the resources it needs to put into this kind of program, but it does mean that the government has to slap its fingers and it has to discipline itself. The government has to cut back on spending. We think there are a lot of areas where that can be done.
Who would be the winners in all of this? The taxpayers are taxpayers whether they pay municipal tax, provincial tax or federal tax. It is all the same person we are talking about here, but we do know that in rural and urban municipalities there is a decline in infrastructure. It is old and it needs to be replaced and those are huge capital expenditures. We think a source of revenue that could be derived which is predictable and non-political is the way to go. Giving up tax points means that the government then has to honour that. If the government gives up these tax points and tells the provinces that the 10ยข a litre fuel tax is theirs, it cannot move back in and put another tax on it if it is given up. I think this is the way to go. We just need a government that can control itself and get control of its spending and there is room indeed to fund the program we are talking about. I certainly hope it does take place.