Madam Speaker, I was pleased to hear my colleague mention the city and county of Peterborough in his remarks. This is something, Madam Speaker, that you can relate to and which may be of interest to you: Toronto is somewhere to the southwest of Peterborough just in the same way, I understand, that Vancouver is somewhere to the west of Kamloops.
I believe that the downloading of responsibilities, as it is called, which has occurred in recent years generally has been appropriate. My colleague mentioned homelessness in particular. My riding is partly rural and partly urban, and I believe that the only way to deal with homelessness in my community is at the local level. What we have not done, until now with regard to the GST, as he mentioned, is also download the resources to deal with those local problems.
I would like to ask my colleague to comment on that, because I know that with respect to transit, my colleague supported VIA Rail to Peterborough. I would like his comments on that from the point of view of smaller communities in Canada.