Mr. Speaker, indeed the motion calls for long-term funding that municipalities can rely on. The investments required are so enormous and the planning horizons so long that municipalities are understandably concerned and afraid about making investments in their own infrastructure in the absence of a long-term plan and partnership.
My colleague is quite correct that this is fundamentally about economics. I have seen statistics that show that businesses benefit 17¢ on the dollar for every dollar invested in infrastructure, and of course there are multiplier effects from that. One only needs to look at the appendices to the government's own budget documents to see that investing in infrastructure pays great economic dividends for job growth in this country. Most importantly, it is about connecting workers to jobs. In a city like Toronto, that is a hugely difficult thing to do with the presence of public transit deserts.
My colleague from Davenport referenced a United Way and McMaster University study talking about precarious work and the need for almost 50% of workers in southern Ontario to stitch part-time jobs together that are not next door to each other. That means workers have to get on buses and travel for two hours to a part-time job, at the end of which they get on another bus or streetcar and travel for another couple of hours. This is not good for the productivity of our city or our country.