Mr. Speaker, infrastructure is important. In fact, Infrastructure Canada's departmental performance report for 2007-08 reports that no money flowed with regard to the building Canada fund and only 4% of new funding pledged by the Conservative government's initiatives in its 2007 budget were dispersed to Canadians. The $137 million for the gateways and border crossing fund did not flow and the $325 million for jurisdiction funding was left untouched. As well, with regard to the P3 projects, $82 million was left unspent. The bottom line is that nearly half of the $3.62 billion originally planned for infrastructure projects was not spent.
It appears to me, and to all Canadians, that the government does not get it about the importance of infrastructure to all Canadians, to the stimulus needed. If it had acted on that, the situation we are in right now, facing this financial crisis, would not have been as difficult to deal with. I wonder if the member would care to comment on the F grade that the Conservatives were just awarded for their lack of infrastructure spending.