Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Surrey on his re-election. He and I live in the same region and share some of the same problems, especially problems of crime that are infecting many of our communities.
However, he did start off by suggesting that he is the spokesperson for municipalities across Canada, that there is this groundswell of opposition against our infrastructure program. There is one organization that does in fact speak for all municipalities across Canada, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. I checked with what it had to say. Its president, Jean Perrault, said:
Today the federal government took concrete action to create new jobs, fight the recession and invest in a safer, greener, more competitive Canada. FCM strongly supports the federal government´s commitment to invest significant new dollars in infrastructure projects that will put Canadians to work in 2009 and 2010.
Why does my colleague from British Columbia not take the FCM's word for it, because it speaks for municipalities?