Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member's comments and I, like him, have a lot of small communities in my constituency.
One of the things we talked about when we were discussing the plan and how it would work was the very fact that smaller communities have a smaller tax base. Nonetheless, since the announcement of the building Canada fund, my communities, I suspect like his, have stepped up to the plate and have made decisions, but they were not easy decisions. I have sat on a small municipal council and I know how tough it is for those councillors to make a decision to invest a small tax base in a specific project, be it a recreation complex or a water or sewer project.
Nonetheless, there are ways to do things. I think of my own experience growing up in a small community of 100 people. We were able to put sewers and water into that community by being a little creative. We had a little help from the government, but also the will of the people dictated to us that it needed to be done and therefore it was.
In the member's comments, he talked about the gas tax. It is important for him to know, and perhaps he does not, but this year the province that he represents will see their gas tax go from $16 million last year to $32.9 million, more than double. I suspect that his communities will tap into this and take great advantage of it. I would ask the member to comment on that.