Mr. Speaker, I am starting to get a persecution complex from this hon. member. On Monday she tried to get me kicked off the finance committee. She told me it was a matter of principle, not personal. I am touched. Now she is a little upset with my special mandate with respect to public-private partnerships.
I want to address my comments and question to the hon. member about this public-private partnership mandate.
I think the hon. member has it basically backwards. The emphasis with the mandate is on partnerships. If we look anywhere close to the future of governments in the country as a whole, one would realize that this year the provincial governments collectively will run a deficit of about $8.2 billion. The federal government's surplus is pretty modest. It is about $1.9 billion. The municipal governments are basically holding on. Their debt load is not all that significant. However, one can readily look into the future and realize that the fiscal planning horizon for all these governments is pretty modest indeed, especially as the Canadian population ages and the demands on infrastructure increase.
I am told that we have an infrastructure deficit of something in the order of about $57 billion and we annually go behind something in the order of about $2 billion. In addition, I think our highway infrastructure has about a $17 billion deficit.
People who look into public finances realize that this has to be addressed, to wit the mandate about public-private partnerships.
I point out to the hon. member that we have basically put the universities of the country back in the research game in the last number of years. Our funding of university research will be in the order of about $9 billion. Almost all of that research is multiplied by public-private partnerships, and that is frankly the only way to go. There will not be any surplus moneys, or very little surplus moneys, at any level of government for addressing the very real infrastructure needs of the country.
I would think the hon. member would actually rejoice with me that this money will be freed from pension plans and freed from even union movements to go into the public realm to address the crying needs of public infrastructure, for retrofits and things of that nature.
A few weeks ago I was approached by representatives of the union movement. They want to participate in the retrofitting of federal buildings to bring them up to environmental speed, and have their own pension money involved in these plans.
The hon. member seems to have emphasized this whole business of public-private partnerships. Is she fairly limited in her horizons that she thinks we can carry on government as usual? It is not just this level of government. It is municipal and provincial governments as well. Is she not in effect denying the people who she purports to represent the opportunity to participate in these partnerships so Canadians as a whole can actually benefit from these partnerships?