Mr. Speaker, actually I had a lot to do with getting the gas tax to municipalities. I was on the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and when I was a city councillor we mounted a very big campaign to persuade the former Liberal government and then the Conservative government to make sure that the gas tax would be transferred to municipalities.
The former leader of our party, Mr. Layton, took one extra cent of the gas tax. Rather than letting it be used as a corporate tax cut, he made sure that the extra cent went to municipalities for public transit only. That fund was allocated through the ridership formula, and not just per capita.
Lots can be done, especially with the gas tax: it should be indexed, it should be more than 5¢, and it would be useful if it were made permanent.