Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to this Liberal opposition motion. As you know, I served two terms, six years, as a municipal councillor in Edmundston, where I was born. It was an extraordinary experience. You should see all the infrastructure projects a municipality may have to carry out during the life of the municipal government in order to provide quality service and give people a better quality of life. The municipalities must provide these services. And we must never forget that the mayor and municipal councillors form the level of government that is closest to the people, and they know best what the people need.
Today, the Liberal motion is relatively simple. It asks that the Conservative government agree to take a portion of the money that should be invested in the infrastructure program to stimulate the economy and transfer that portion to the wonderful gasoline tax rebate program that we, the Liberals, put in place.
Today, municipalities, cities and towns of all sizes are realizing that they need to carry out their infrastructure projects now. If we want to help our communities and stimulate local economies, we must put people to work, and the infrastructure programs are certainly a good way to do that. But money is not flowing to communities at present. They have infrastructure projects and they are waiting. This government is telling cities and towns that their turn will come and that they will be able to go ahead with their projects at some point.
In fact, according to the Conservative government, there is money in the budget for infrastructure. This means that there should be shovels in the ground right away, and people should be working now. But these cities and towns are being told that their projects will have to wait. We have to wonder why there is a pressing need, yet they are being told to wait.
These municipalities need appropriate infrastructure so that they can serve residents appropriately. If we want to make sure that these services are available and these municipalities continue to develop, if we want to stimulate the economy by funding infrastructure, then we also have to make sure that the municipalities can have the money not in one year, two years, three years or 10 years, but right now—