Mr. Speaker, I certainly hope to answer as many of my friend's questions as I can.
This government is committed to establishing world-class infrastructure in Canada to support a stronger economy, a cleaner environment, and better communities, a clear and necessary thing for all Canadians.
We are working hard to ensure that our infrastructure investments help Canada emerge from the recent economic crisis with a more modern and greener infrastructure in a number of different ways. We are doing this through the $33 billion building Canada plan and the $12 billion in infrastructure funding that is part of Canada's economic action plan.
Infrastructure Canada has actually committed more than $9.6 billion toward 6,000 infrastructure projects across this country. When combined with contributions from provinces, territories, municipalities, and other funding partners that have joined this effort, this means a total of more than $27 billion committed for infrastructure projects in communities across the country, like the member's own community and riding.
Thousands of communities across Canada have been able to benefit from this money, and build and upgrade infrastructure that stimulates the local economy, generating business and jobs. In just a one-year period of time we have announced 1,100 projects across Canada to clean up water systems, 60 projects to improve public transit, and 1,400 projects to upgrade local roads and highways that Canadians use every single day.
Communities in northern Ontario have also benefited and will continue to benefit from these infrastructure programs. This government supports the economic needs of Canada's communities, including those in my friend's riding of Sault Ste. Marie.
Over the past year we have heard from municipalities and industry in the area that the Huron Central Rail line is important to the economic sustainability of northern Ontario. We have heard that clearly.
On February 12 of this year, the Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities responded on behalf of the federal government. In a letter to his provincial counterparts, he explained that we are ready to provide our share of funding through the provincial-territorial base fund for this project. Let me quote part of that letter. It stated:
A joint call for proposals from Canada and Ontario was made pursuant to the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, for which the Huron Central Rail line applied. I would note that in reviewing the applications submitted for short-line rail projects, Ontario did not indicate an interest or priority in funding such projects, including the Huron Central Rail's call for funding under that program...
The Infrastructure Stimulus Fund is no longer able to make new commitments.
However, should Ontario now choose to support this project, I am happy to inform you that the Government of Canada is indeed prepared to support this initiative, provided that Ontario submits it for funding under the Provincial-Territorial Base Fund.
I know it is quite lengthy. It went on to say:
As you know, we have been negotiating a Canada-Ontario Provincial-Territorial Base Fund agreement since 2008, most recently with the view to fully accelerating Ontario's entire allocation over fiscal years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 as part of Canada's economic action plan.
We provided a draft of the agreement to you in August 2008 and did not receive initial comments until one year later in August 2009.
Ontario remains the only jurisdiction in Canada without an agreement in place to access their allocation of $175 million.
The minister then concluded by saying:
--that we move swiftly to sign the Canada-Ontario Provincial-Territorial Base Fund agreement--
It is this government that is moving forward to try to get Ontario to do so and I will continue to answer my friend's question as the night progresses.