Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Scarborough Southwest for his interest in this important issue.
Here are the pertinent facts. Federal support for investments in public transit infrastructure has been and continues to be an important national priority for our government. Since we took office in 2006, we have committed close to $5 billion to public transit projects across the country. In addition, public transit is a major beneficiary of investments through the gas tax fund, which our government increased to $2 billion annually and recently made a permanent source of long-term sustainable funding for municipalities. Since 2006, municipalities have used approximately $1.5 billion of their federal gas tax fund allocations toward transit investments.
An important portion of these investments has been made in the greater Toronto Area. In fact, the City of Toronto has chosen to invest all of its gas tax fund transfers in public transit. This means an investment of close to $500 million in public transit in the city of Toronto alone. The Cities of Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver and Calgary have made similar decisions.
The Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities has been very clear that our government will continue to be a supportive partner of municipal needs, but we believe that cities are best positioned to identify and make decisions about their infrastructure needs.
The greater Toronto area is also a very important beneficiary of federal investments in public transit through the government's infrastructure programming. Since 2006, the government has committed over $1.86 billion toward public transit projects in the greater Toronto area, such as the construction of an 8.6 kilometre extension of the Spadina subway, improvements to the GO Transit network and an important revitalization project at Union Station.
Through the infrastructure stimulus fund, the federal government has invested more than $100 million in public transit projects in the greater Toronto area. Examples of projects supported through this program in Toronto include a transit station modernization program, the renewal of subway tracks and overhaul of subway escalators and elevators and various transit infrastructure improvements identified by the Toronto Transit Commission.
This unprecedented level of federal support for public transit in the greater Toronto area and across the country for projects such as the Evergreen transit line in the greater Vancouver area, the expansion of the light rail transit systems in Edmonton and Calgary as well as the light rail transit project in Ottawa, demonstrates that the government understands the importance of public transit in making our communities more prosperous.
In budget 2011, and again in our recent budget 2012, our government committed to work with provinces, territories, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and other stakeholders to develop a long-term plan for public infrastructure that extended beyond the expiry of the building Canada plan in 2014.
While expressing an interest in discussing public transit infrastructure as part of the government's engagement process to develop this long-term plan, both the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Urban Transit Association have praised the levels of investments provided by the Government of Canada for public transit. We are pleased to be working closely with both these important stakeholders as part of our development process of a long-term plan. In fact, the discussions over the development of a new long-term infrastructure plan will be taking place on the foundation of the unprecedented levels of investments provided by the government for public transit in the greater Toronto area and across the country.