Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to talk about infrastructure. I believe that I am splitting my time.
We have very great and special needs for infrastructure in the north. The Association of Yukon Communities has made this case eloquently over the years. We have many more roads per capita and tough economic and environmental situations which make infrastructure costly and the needs very great. We were of course delighted in 1993 when the Government of Canada, which was not normally involved in infrastructure, presented the first federal-municipal-provincial-territorial infrastructure program.
It had great success in Yukon. Every single municipality received funding. There was another fund that went along with it for first nations and many excellent projects were funded under that program. They were funded so well that the program was extended in Canada with another $425 million. After that the Association of Yukon Communities, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and all the municipal associations of the country lobbied for a further extension of the program because it was so successful. It served people right across the country and addressed the needs that were identified by the people and municipalities.
In 2000 the second round of municipal infrastructure was started with $2.65 billion over six years. Of that, $600 million was for the strategic highway infrastructure. Highways are very important in our area for both resource development and tourism. The great Alaska highway has received funds under that strategic highway infrastructure program.
In 2001 yet another infrastructure program was started by the federal government. The municipal programs for water and sewers in our area were also used for recreation and roads. However, across the country, over and above these programs that all these municipalities could apply for, there were some big projects that needed to be funded. They could not be funded under the original program because they would have taken all the money. A special program was set up, the strategic infrastructure program in 2001, with $2 billion to fund these huge projects. This would have a great effect on the provinces and territories, and on Canada as a whole without taking it out of the municipal infrastructure-type projects.
Many of us lobbied for this infrastructure funding to continue. We were delighted in the last budget when 10 more years of commitment by the federal government was made for infrastructure. Another $3 billion was added to that: $2 billion to double the size of the strategic infrastructure fund, and $1 billion for new municipal projects.
On top of that, there are a lot of other projects and programs, some of which I will mention briefly, that also contributed to infrastructure but did not necessarily have infrastructure in the name or were not the common programs about which people are talking about today. For example, the green municipal fund that has been so successfully delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is something for which I lobbied to continue and increase the funds because it was so successful and quite often it was related to infrastructure or assisted infrastructure.
When we had the tight budget year, when there were few things extra that could be funded, I was delighted that that fund was actually increased. Municipalities are using that very well across the country. It is delivered very efficiently by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
I have always been a big supporter of and have lobbied for infrastructure. We need money for highways, so I am delighted with any mechanism that will bring more money for highways. I would like even more than what the Alliance is asking for in this motion. Coming from rural Canada I want to speak for rural Canada and remind people that in rural Canada we have more miles of road per capita, and therefore more needs and sometimes more difficult conditions.
Whatever formula is used must take that into account because if rural people, with all these roads to maintain, happen to go into a big centre to purchase their gas then how will they get a fair share. All this would have to be worked out.
Having worked as a federal executive for many years I am familiar with how the Financial Administration Act works. This is another example where Canadians who are watching and the many seniors who are out there watching, who are so important to us, must be made aware. The Government of Canada takes all the money in from various sources of revenue, taxes and income tax, and then it decides what is important and needed. It does not match the revenues to the expenditures because it would not make much sense if it got less revenue one year and it could not pay enough for a certain area. It takes all the revenues and decides what is most in need and it provides the money that way. That is the way that Canada has financed itself for many years.
I wish to compliment the Tory member for St. John's East who made an excellent list of how allocated taxes have not worked in the past and do not work. If all the money is taken because there is a big year in a set area, then there is no money left for health, farmers, defence or even roads if they are not directly related.
I did want to put a plug in for my old alma mater too, for the great work that the municipal associations have done across Canada in lobbying for infrastructure. Most provinces have one major one but some of them have a rural one and an urban one. They all work very hard. The presidents and boards of directors are all volunteers and put in endless hours to help local communities, and the executive directors are very professional and have done a superb job in the nation.
I wanted to also point out that in the north we have a problem that increases infrastructure costs because of permafrost. Because of global warming we have entire communities and administrations whose buildings are changing. Some areas depend on ice roads for the economy and those cannot be put in at the same time or there may be a lot of open water and the economic drivers cannot get across. There is study going on in this area, but once again, it is another infrastructure cost.
I would like to commend the Government of Canada for its work on the national infrastructure guide through NRC. It is studying best practices in Canada as they relate to infrastructure so that municipalities, some of which are very small, several hundred people, can share the information and have savings such as the case I talked about concerning ice bridges.
I wish to make another point that relates to the north. These projects cannot be set up so that they are just for big cities or projects that are designed in a big manner for people from the south or non-rural areas to consider. Every municipality except one in Yukon has less than 3,000 people and most of them have less than 1,000 people. We cannot have huge project limits like $10 million as a minimum in a town that has 100 people. It does not make a lot of sense so we must be very regionally sensitive.
A couple of weeks ago I was at an Association of Yukon Communities meeting and it wanted to ensure that programs were not bundled into those big amounts. It passed a resolution stating that the Association of Yukon Communities and FCM's northern forum should address the issue of bundling that would restrict small and northern communities from meeting the criteria of infrastructure programs.
I want to commend the finance committee and the Government of Canada for recently recognizing that in the north per capita funding does not work because there are so many more miles of road per person and so few taxpayers, and so many difficult infrastructure problems. The government has altered the allocation of moneys to recognize those important needs of northern infrastructure which is important for both municipalities but also for economic development, and for that I am very thankful.