Madam Speaker, I am certainly glad that perhaps the government has learned lessons from the Auditor General's report, when it said that it should have engineers and architects right at the beginning, rather than involving them somewhere in the middle.
However, the government took leadership and action five years after the fact when it knew this bridge was probably in need of replacement. This process has been talked about since 2006. Minister Cannon mentioned it. Leadership is taking action when action is called for, so this is too little too late.
We have long recognized the economic importance of the bridge and the economic importance of infrastructure in general across the country. When other governments were cutting their infrastructure spending, NDP governments in the 1990s maintained their infrastructure spending and actually weathered the storm at that time.
The government knew this bridge needed to be replaced. When it hides a diamond in a pile of manure, presents the manure to us and then says that it does not like diamonds, it is disingenuous.