Mr. Speaker, the minister should pick up the phone, call Mayor McCallion and give her that speech.
Here are the real facts. Only half of that infrastructure money actually goes to municipalities. The rest of it goes to provincial and federal projects. While cities are facing a $60 billion infrastructure deficit, they get less than $2.5 billion a year on average.
While the Conservatives are playing shell games, municipalities are having to be the grown-ups and find a way to pay for the Conservatives' neglect of cities.
Why can the government not set the right priorities that would actually benefit ordinary Canadians? Infrastructure must be funded. Why can it not just get it done?