Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to engage in this discussion. As a former president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, I can tell the House of those dark days when the Conservatives ignored infrastructure, and it was nice to see the Chrétien government bring in the infrastructure program in 1994.
My colleague raises a very important issue, which is that if in fact we are going to have an economic stimulus package from the government and if the government is really serious about getting people to work and getting infrastructure programs going, one would wonder why it would have such a complicated approach. The gas tax is the most efficient and most effective way, and we know that many municipal budgets have already been set, so municipalities cannot necessarily find money out of thin air to match.
I ask my colleague that if in fact in this particular case the idea is economic stimulus, why would we ignore a program that even the government had supported in the past, which is the gas tax? How does the member see this as a more effective instrument in delivering the kinds of projects municipal governments require and would like to fund today? Could the member elaborate on that for us?