Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege for me to contribute to the debate on this motion from the hon. colleague. I would like to share my time with the hon. member for Edmonton—Mill Woods—Beaumont.
I think we should start the debate by talking about why we are in the situation we are and by understanding what is happening globally, because if we do not understand that and deal with this motion in that context, we are going to miss exactly what we are trying to do. We will get into the gutter and start playing politics, as petty as they can become in the House.
Let me try this out for a bit. We have to understand how the banking system in the Unites States has failed and how the asset-backed commercial paper and mortgages in the United States have collapsed and brought us into this situation. It is not only in the United States; it has rippled into the banking systems in Europe and Asia. We are not immune to it, because America is our largest trading partner.
This is a global slowdown. It is not something that has happened just to us. It is not something we caused or asked for or had any part in promoting in any way. However, we nonetheless have to deal with it. We have to deal with it collectively, because any stimulus money that is put into the American, European or Asian economies will not spin us out of the global slowdown if it is not done collectively. It is only if we put our collective efforts together as the G20 and do it respectively in each of our countries that we will see Canadians, Americans, Europeans, Asians and so on go back to work. Then we will spin our way out of this situation.
Failing to do this, we will see a repeat of what happened in the 1930s. Hopefully we have learned from history and we will work collectively to get out of this slowdown. We have to look at the stimulus package in that light.
It is not that this is our first stimulation package. This is the second one. As the world economy was slowing down, the first package we saw started in the fall of 2007 with a $200 billion stimulation package. This package included lowering the GST from 7% to 5%, implementing child tax credits and putting $100 per child into the hands of ordinary Canadians for child care, lowering corporate taxes to 15% and lowering small business taxes to 11%. These agendas were started long before we got into what was recognized by the world as an international economic slowdown.
We have to understand that what we are trying to do with the infrastructure and stimulus funding is actually twofold. First of all, we have to put Canadians back to work with their own money. We have to do it now, because they are losing jobs at the present time. However, we have to do more than that. We have to build an infrastructure that will prepare us to compete and be productive long into the 21st century and long after the current economic slowdown has passed.
That is why we are putting money into transit which is green. It not only improves the quality of the systems that get individuals to and fro in our major urban settings, but it is also environmentally friendly and it allows us to breathe cleaner air. We are also putting money into waste water, making sure that we have cleaner water. We are also making sure that we have green projects, that we have the very best of municipal waste disposal systems in the world, the best coal-burning and biofuel facilities in the world and the ability to create energy from those cellulosic and forest sectors and other opportunities that we have.
If we can do that with our infrastructure money, we will not be playing that petty game of who gets the most, which municipalities win and which municipalities lose. This will sustain us well into the 21st century. Everyone in Canada will win and we can be very proud of the technologies we design and the progress that we make.
We started this stimulus package three years ago. We came into power with the understanding that the infrastructure across the country was deteriorating and we had to do something about it. We put forward a $33 billion infrastructure program. That program is being built on with our action plan, which is another $12 billion. That $12 billion is split up a number of different ways. We have $4 billion in infrastructure stimulus funding.
One of the magic parts of this economic action plan, which I appreciate the opposition supporting, is the concept of use it or lose it. If we are going to stimulate the economy, we have to do it now and create the jobs when jobs are being lost. If we do not include the concept of use it or lose it, the money will go out beyond the time when it would be of appropriate use, not on the infrastructure side but on the stimulus side. It has to be done now and it has to be in new projects.
We are not prepared to put money into the hands of the municipalities or give them blank cheques and tell them they can spend whatever they want, because they would just balance their books on the backs of the federal government. They would not use the money as a stimulus for creating new projects. This money has to be used to stimulate the economy, to put Canadians back to work and to create jobs that would not normally be there.
Also, there is $2 billion to accelerate the construction of colleges and universities across the country. Canada has nothing to hide or to be ashamed of when it comes to post-secondary education. We are number one in the world when it comes to post-secondary graduates, but we can do better. We can keep on top of this agenda. When our young people are educated properly and have the best facilities to obtain that education, we will win in the 21st century. We have to put money into the high tech part of it and make sure our universities are creating the very brightest and best. Our future is based on the strength of our educational system and our youth. We are very pleased to be able to put $2 billion into that.
There is another $1 billion for the green infrastructure projects. This goes right to the visit of the President of the United States, who was here last week. He told Canada that he is very interested in the carbon capture and sequestration programs. We have to make sure that we are not only using fossil fuels in the cleanest way possible, and developing technologies that we can sell internationally, but that we are also working together to make sure that technology works.
As well, dealing with coal, which is another source of energy, we realize that if we are going to keep our GDP growing and our economic growth the same in the next 30 years as we have in the last 30, we have to double the amount of energy in that time period. Doubling the amount of energy in a clean, environmentally effective way is no small task. It is something that all of us have to look at intelligently. We have to do it in a way that understands the politics of the world. A lot of the fossil fuels come from unstable political regimes such as in the Middle East, Venezuela and so on. These are the challenges of North America and we can meet those challenges.
There is another $500 million in support for construction of new community recreational facilities. We were very proud, as were all Canadians, when a lot of these rinks were built for our centennial anniversary in 1967, but they are getting old. They need refurbishing. This infrastructure funding is there to help build centres for cultural and other activities in the small communities across the country, from one coast to the other. We are very proud of that and it is something that is needed to sustain the infrastructure in the local communities.
We are going to do it, which goes to the essence of question in the motion before us that we are debating. How are we going to get the money out? How are we going to do it effectively? We are going to be working with the provinces to be make sure that we fast-track key infrastructure projects.
For example, part of the infrastructure project is a base fund of $25 million over a five year period. Every province gets the same: $25 million. That is $175 million over seven years per province. We are not going to wait for seven years before we spend it. We are going to accelerate that so the provinces can spend that $175 million right now. They can do it on good projects that are based on criteria set by municipal and provincial governments. It is leveraged three to one, so we are going to see not only federal money but also municipal and provincial money going into those accelerated funds to build capacity for more employment and more infrastructure.
It is timely, very important and smart to do this kind of spending at this time because there is better competition in the bidding process for the jobs that are out there right now. I was talking to a number of the premiers. I was talking to one premier's office last week and I will be talking to another one this afternoon. What I am hearing right across the country is that the competitive bidding process is better today than it was a year ago. In fact some are telling me it is 25% to 30% better. Our dollar is going to go much further and we are going to be able to build more infrastructure because of the way we are doing it and the time in which we are doing it.
Let us do it smartly. Let us clean out some of the hindrances that we have seen. That is why in Bill C-10 there is a portion dealing with the Navigable Waters Protection Act to make sure that we get a lot of the bureaucracy out of the way, deal with the appropriate places where the environment is compromised, and not be so phobic about some of the things that are ridiculous under the act. We are going to change the definition of navigable waters. We do not want to duplicate environmental studies. We want to make sure that we do the appropriate study on that.
This government is building a tremendous amount of infrastructure projects at the present time and we are going to continue to do a lot more. I ask all members to please stay tuned.