Mr. Speaker, I very much welcome the rhetoric and I will certainly admit that the rhetoric in this budget is superb. Every single important piece that people in the community were looking for is mentioned. However, as I pointed out in my speech, it is not about saying “We will invest in social housing”. The government's responsibility is to make the money flow so that social housing would actually be created.
If we are asking municipalities to pony up a third of the money that is required for the infrastructure programs that are mentioned in this budget, none of that will be built. What communities need is real investment. They need dollars to flow. Yes, we need more housing. Absolutely. We need infrastructure projects. There is absolutely no question about whether bridges in this country and roads in this country are in states of disrepair. As I said, there is no doubt that Hamilton needs a new waste water treatment plant. That is not in question. But we need more than rhetoric. We need real action. We need real dollars. We need the money to flow, or none of the rhetoric will help any Canadian or any Canadian city.