Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member knows, this government is doing all that it can to address the economic downturn. We are pouring billions of dollars into keeping Canadians working, improving our infrastructure, building roads and bridges in my riding, new roads projects across York region, new funding for GO train stations.
One thing that is so important is that we continue to work closely with our provincial and municipal partners to get the money out the door.
I know the hon. member was a member of a provincial Liberal government, a cabinet minister nonetheless. Could she comment on how she would have felt if the federal government made a unilateral decision with respect to infrastructure in her province and if it asked her and the municipalities to pay two-thirds of the cost, but did not ask their opinion on what was important?
The member knows that the stimulus funding we are asking for includes a number of accountability measures, not the least of which is, as she mentioned, that it has to be in the economic action plan, that there must be a request for Treasury Board approval and that reporting will be done through supplementary estimates.
More important, why is she so frightened that municipal and provincial governments cannot make the decisions necessary to see that funding gets done and gets brought into the right places for roads, bridges, sewers in their communities?