Mr. Speaker, I would point out to my hon. colleague that on this side of the House, when it comes to infrastructure issues, we were the party of infrastructure. Liberals did not wait for 10 years as the previous Conservative government did and let it lay dormant for 10 years.
In 1994, after being elected, Liberals brought in the national infrastructure program, in which all cities, towns, villages, provinces and territories worked collaboratively together. That was infrastructure. We understood that. I have not heard the word “infrastructure” from Conservatives for 10 years, so it is a bit rich now to suggest that somehow they are coming to the rescue for cities and communities.
When it comes to the issue of fiscal imbalance, it is very interesting. If we look at the days when there was a national deficit in this country, never did we hear a word in the chamber with regard to fiscal imbalance. Why? It is because when we do not have any money, nobody comes to ask for any.
Under the Liberal government when there began to be surpluses and it started paying down the debt, there was suddenly a fiscal imbalance. The question of fiscal imbalance is rather strange given the fact that the provinces and territories have the same fiscal capacity as the federal government, if not more, if they want to deal with those issues.
However, again, this is a government that eliminated the cushion of $3 billion, so that if there is a crisis tomorrow, we will be on the hook because of the incompetence of the government when it comes to dealing with fiscal management.