Mr. Speaker, communities across northern Ontario are scrambling to deal with the growing municipal infrastructure deficit. The federal government, along with the provincial Liberals, have simply walked away on the north. Sure we will hear them talk about the COMRIF program but COMRIF has been a complete failure to deal with the years of underfunding.
Meanwhile, the municipal infrastructure gap continues to grow. Homeowners are facing massive increases in municipal tax rates to pay for water, sewage and road improvements. Many of these communities do not have the tax base to cover it.
I want to speak today to the issue facing the people in Larder Lake and Virginiatown, Ontario. These are proud communities. They are not asking for handouts. They want to know why the federal government has shifted the burden of infrastructure costs onto the family economy. This is a fundamental issue of fairness. The gold resources from these communities helped build the Canadian economy and yet it feels like these communities, along with communities right across the rural north, are being cut adrift from the rest of this country.
How are we going to build viable communities as long as we continue to shift the infrastructure debt down to the municipalities? It is time we dealt with the growing gap between the rural and the urban south.