Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to address the question raised by the hon. member for Etobicoke North.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House of the significant investments this Conservative government has made in infrastructure nationwide. Our government is delivering an economic action plan that will stimulate economic growth, create jobs and support Canadian families and Canadian jobs across the country.
This includes a $4 billion infrastructure stimulus fund to help provinces, territories and municipalities get projects started as soon as possible; $2 billion to accelerate construction at colleges and universities; $1 billion to create a new green infrastructure fund for new green infrastructure across this country; and $500 million to support construction of new community recreational facilities and upgrades to existing facilities that are in disrepair.
This Conservative government is the real deal. We have also flowed more than $307 million to provinces and territories under the provincial territorial base initiative. That is money more quickly given to them so they can spend it on their priorities.
Our government has taken some serious action in order to get shovels in the ground and projects under way as soon as possible to keep Canadians employed and get more Canadians employed.
Over the last few months, we have approved more than 500 projects in small communities across the country worth over $1.5 billion in combined funding. These projects will directly stimulate local economies nationwide.
We have also announced 21 major projects with a total federal contribution of $980 million, almost $1 billion, including the Evergreen transit line in Vancouver, the Edmonton southwest ring road, the GO Transit in Ontario and expansion of a drinking water facility in Lévis, Quebec.
We are getting the job done for Canadians. Since the start of the fiscal year, we have flowed $1 billion in gas tax money to towns and cities three months early so that they could put federal money to work right away creating those Canadian jobs and making more Canadian jobs. We will flow another $1 billion to municipalities later this year, doubling what they received in previous years.
That is just the start of the good news. In the member's own home province of Ontario, we asked municipalities to tell us what projects they could get going on with help from our infrastructure stimulus fund. The deadline for application just closed at the end of the day Friday.
Indeed, and despite the accusations of some of the parties opposite regarding municipalities not being ready to begin these projects, we have received 2,746 project proposals from over 425 municipalities province-wide, totalling approximately $6.1 billion. These are eligible costs and a requested federal contribution of $2.1 billion.
Our government is committed to working with our partners in the provinces, territories and municipalities in order to get projects moving and shovels in the ground as soon as possible. We are working with other levels of government to leverage two-thirds of the money to create more jobs and realize more projects.
We are getting the job done by expanding and accelerating our infrastructure investments and by cutting red tape that has been there for years. By working with other levels of government, as we are, we are ensuring Canada emerges from this global recession sooner than other countries and stronger than ever before with more jobs, more Canadian jobs.