Madam Speaker, the issue being debated here is the amount of money the government is spending on roads. The fact of the matter is, as I stated before, that 99% of federal transfers to provinces for road and highway development was spent east of Ontario. Nothing is coming west. That is the issue here. There are huge moneys taken out of British Columbia every year on federal excise taxes on gas. There are huge moneys taken out of British Columbia every year on taxes on the harbour, on Vancouver Port, on Surrey Fraser docks and on the federal airport. These are federally mandated facilities. Huge revenues accrue to the federal government for those facilities and virtually nothing comes back in infrastructure support. That is simply wrong.
In the House of Commons on June 12th, 2003. See this statement in context.