Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.
First, the NDP will be supporting this motion.
As a former city councillor in Victoria, I have seen the financial squeeze experienced by my city as a result of downloading and increased responsibility over the years. It meant reduced transit service, despite increasing demand. It meant storm water systems could not be fixed. Libraries, already too small and inadequate for the need, could not be expanded. On and on it goes.
We know what infrastructure means for a city. We know how crucial it is for quality of life. Infrastructure involves our transportation system. It involves our water system in distribution, supply, and treatment. We are all aware of the problems in many parts of Canada with the basic water supply. It involves waste water treatment, sanitary and storm sewers and related treatment facilities. It relates to transit facilities, equipment and rolling stock. It also involves many other public facilities like cultural and social centres, sports facilities and waste management facilities.
We are not talking about just any kind of infrastructure. As a result of the crisis of climate change, we should be thinking about green infrastructure to allow our cities to reduce their carbon footprints. This makes the investment in infrastructure by the federal government even more critical at this time. It cannot be business as usual as the Conservative government is proposing.
The recent FCM report talks about the near collapse of our infrastructure. Mr. Steeves, the president of FCM, said, “both the size of the deficit and its accelerating growth point to a coming collapse in Canada’s municipal infrastructure”. We know the impact this will have on our communities.
This deficit has been a long time coming. The federal budgetary cuts in the mid-nineties were part of the problem. As a result, municipalities had no choice. It was a question of fixing the storm sewers or fixing something else. The competing demands could not be met.
In 1992 the infrastructure deficit was $20 billion. By 2006, that deficit had grown to $60 billion. Now we are told by the FCM report that it has grown to $128 billion and will continue to accelerate because the infrastructure has grown older and has not been replaced. This will affect Canadians in their daily lives in many ways and very seriously.
Right now municipalities have difficulty managing current infrastructure demands let alone the accumulated backlog that has resulted from many years of Liberal under-investment and neglect. This is being compounded by population growth and migration to cities.
The Conservatives promised in the 2006 election to, “fully implement the transfer of the equivalent of five cents per litre of gasoline to cities and communities”. That will not happen until 2009-10. The full $2 billion of gas tax transfers will not be implemented, again, until 2010. Given the problems that we have been made aware of through the FCM report, this is just unconscionable.
I would like to talk about how this will affect Victoria specifically. We know that it will have social and economic impacts. In fact, it already has, just from the transportation perspective. We know from a recent board of trade study that the congestion and gridlock across major cities in Canada is costing the economy up to $3.7 billion a year, not to mention the human costs in premature deaths because of growing air quality problems in our city.
It is also about problems with greenhouse gas emissions, which is what is being discussed right now in Bali. It is about air pollution. It is about water pollution. It is about the need to keep our kids healthy and have a healthful walking environment and healthful sports facilities where they can go. It is about the need to have libraries, where we can create a better learning climate in our cities.
This has resulted in local taxes having to be increased. The choice is either to increase taxes or to continue to allow infrastructure to fail. Only irresponsible governance would allow that. That is what is happening right now in Canada.
The Conservatives' proposal will allow at best under $5 billion a year for infrastructure. We know from the report that the infrastructure deficit will increase to $400 billion within the next 12 years. Just the simple math makes it very clear that we are not going to be able to keep up with the problem. The backlog will continue.
In Victoria, for example, I have seen an aging stormwater system causing polluted and contaminated water to go into our harbour.
Also, I have seen our transit system just trying to keep up with the current demand. We had 21 million in ridership for our city last year, but the system still cannot keep up with the demand. There are continual pass-bys in high ridership areas where people are going to the university or downtown.
Canada is the only G-8 country without a national long term and predictable investment in public transit. That has lasted way too long.
Citizens in greater Victoria want healthy and sustainable communities. A number of groups have been pressing the government to act on this. For example, the IslandTransformations coalition has shown the viability of light rail that is fast, comfortable, safe, non-polluting and inexpensive to operate.
The student-run We Ride campaign is pressing for an improved transit system and affordability. The students cannot get back and forth from university.
The Victoria Transport Institute is working toward concrete solutions for a paradigm shift toward viable alternative transport models, but the federal seat at the table is still vacant. The Conservatives are still talking about a transit strategy and re-announcing old money from what I might say is the NDP budget of 2005.
If we are serious about cutting emissions and keeping our cities livable, we must support long term transit.
I heard one of my colleagues chuckle when I talked about the 2005 budget. The amendment to the Liberal budget was the first reinvestment in transit that had occurred. Or should I say investment? I should not even say reinvestment because we remain the only country without a national strategy for transit.
The Conservative government certainly looked good in last year's budget when it provided a top-up to the municipal rural infrastructure fund and the strategic infrastructure fund to maintain spending. However, the 2006-07 allocation never made it out the door because the government delayed signing agreements.
I suppose it wanted to repackage and re-profile the infrastructure program. The result for municipalities and cities was that there was no new money available for the 2006 construction season--