Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from my colleague from Windsor West. I know that he has put a great deal of time, effort and energy into the concerns with the corridor between Windsor and Detroit.
In the Conservative Party we have allocated responsibility for this issue to one member of Parliament to singularly examine and focus on this issue, the member for Essex. I know the member for Windsor West has worked very hard on this issue with the member for Essex.
I think the dollar question that the member raises is apt. Half of the cost of a litre of gasoline is taxation. Half of those taxes go to the provinces; half of those taxes come to Ottawa. What is interesting is that the federal government does not engineer, build or maintain a single kilometre of highway in this country. Municipalities engineer and build roads. Provinces deal with our highways in cooperation with the municipalities. It is not the federal government. The money that comes to Ottawa goes into a general revenue fund and it goes to financing all kinds of other programs.
If we told the average citizens when they were filling up their tanks with gasoline that one out of every second full tank of gasoline is 100% taxes and half of that money is going to Ottawa and absolutely zero of it is going into the roads that they are driving on, they would get angry. They should get angry. When we look at the corridor, when we look at the concerns we have with our infrastructure, that needs to change.
The Conservative Party from day one has been talking about recalibrating that excess taxation that has been coming to Ottawa and putting more money back into the hands of the people in Windsor and that county. The federal government needs to get going with fixing our infrastructure and putting money back into the hands of the level of government that actually makes the decisions when it comes to our transportation.