Mr. Speaker, the minister, and now the parliamentary secretary, tell us that there has never been so much money invested in infrastructure in Canada's history. On paper, we are talking about $47.5 billion, but just now the parliamentary secretary mentioned $47 billion spread over 10 years.
In fact, and according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, over the next five years there will be $5.8 million less than the amount provided for this fiscal year. In addition, there are still long delays to access the funding announced by the Conservatives, which means that several unspent monies are included in the $47.5-billion amount. Therefore there is not $47.5 billion in new money, since the old amounts are included in this total. However, we are being told that this is new money.
Is the minister's new strategy to cause delays in order to save money and then make people believe that this is new money?
I never received an adequate answer to my questions. He said there would be no break in funding. I asked him when the application process could begin, to ensure there is no break in funding on April 1, 2014.