Mr. Speaker, let me start with some infrastructure realities in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, we do not have superhighways. Most of the Trans-Canada Highway across my province is two lanes: one lane going east and one lane going west. We do not even have trains in Newfoundland. They were taken out, beginning in 1988. Labrador has trains to ship iron ore, but there are no passenger trains. Much of Labrador, in the year of our Lord 2013, does not even have paved roads. How is that for an infrastructure problem?
I was in Labrador West before Christmas. The parking lot of the local high school was filled with snowmobiles. The rural way is a different way of life, a more rugged way of life. Rural infrastructure needs are different from urban infrastructure needs. However, both are just as important.
Here is a stark reality of Newfoundland and Labrador life. There are towns in my province with chlorine water treatment systems that do not operate. They are not turned on because the towns cannot afford to run them.
Here is another stark reality of Newfoundland and Labrador life. There are towns that have had boil water advisories for 10, 15 and 20 years—not months, but years—because the towns cannot afford to fix the problems. On any given day in Newfoundland and Labrador, there could be 100 to 150 towns with boil water advisories because the towns do not have the money to fix the water problems.
The opposition motion before this House today, moved by the tireless member of Parliament for Trinity—Spadina, calls upon the Conservative government to commit in the upcoming federal budget to a long-term, predictable federal infrastructure plan to fix crumbling infrastructure, shorten commute times and improve Canada's lagging productivity. We have traffic gridlock. We have failing water systems. We have pothole-filled roads. We have an infrastructure deficit, calculated as the total amount of investments needed to maintain and replace decaying municipal infrastructure at $171 billion. These facts are not debatable. They are stark realities of Canadian life.
We need a long-term, predictable infrastructure plan. That is what municipalities are calling for. We do not need an ad hoc budget-to-budget funding model favoured by the current Prime Minister, better suited to photo ops rather than building strong communities. We need strong communities. We are trying to build those strong communities and towns with eight-cent tax dollars. By 8 cents, I mean that municipalities receive only 8% of Canada's tax revenue.
The work of municipalities is critical to our day-to-day life. To put this into perspective, I would like to quote Randy Simms, who is the mayor of Mount Pearl, in my riding of St. John's South—Mount Pearl. He stated:
You can invest in what you want—you can put millions in the fishery, millions into the university, put millions into education, millions into business. You can do whatever you want, but remember this. If you don't invest in communities, in healthy communities, you can't have a healthy province. And if you don't have a healthy province, you can't build a healthy nation. The guys that get the eight cents, they're like the hand that rocks the cradle.
Now that brings the point home. We can argue in this House about new jets. We can argue in this House about pipelines. We can argue about international trade deals. Those are important arguments to have. However, they do not mean a thing if our roads are not fit to drive on, our water is not fit to drink and our bridges are not safe.
This country has to get back to the basics: healthy communities, healthy provinces and a healthy nation. It is simple math, policy 101.
I had a conversation last evening with the president of Municipalities Newfoundland and Labrador, a man by the name of Churence Rogers. I asked Churence what message he wanted me to bring to the floor of the House of Commons. His message is exactly what is in this motion today. He spoke about long-term predictable funding—there are those words again—with more flexibility on how municipalities, especially small municipalities, spend the funding. He spoke about less restrictions and more dedicated infrastructure funding, as opposed to application-based infrastructure funding, which is where the politics seep into the system and where the rot begins.
When it comes to transportation, one of the biggest problems in Newfoundland today is the Gulf of St. Lawrence ferry link. I recently took the ferry from Port aux Basques, on the west coast of Newfoundland, to North Sydney, Nova Scotia, and it cost me for a round trip, including an overnight berth, a total of $561.75 to travel about 360 kilometres. If I travelled that far by road, it would cost about a tank of gas, less than $100. That is our highway, and the cost for passengers and shipping commercial freight on the gulf ferry run is destined to increase on April 1 by another 4%. When we talk infrastructure and transportation, we are talking about business, and the cost of business in Newfoundland and Labrador is continually rising. The ferry link is our highway, and this poor infrastructure is affecting the cost of food, the cost of clothes, the cost of everything.
What do we want from this motion, this infrastructure plan? What should Canadians, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, take away from this? We want a plan that is developed through continuous talks with provinces, territories, municipalities and aboriginal communities. We want a long-term plan that spans 20 years. We want clear funding, clear program targets and transparency. We want the politics taken out of it, if the Conservatives know how to do that.
What have the Conservatives said about a long-term, predictable infrastructure plan? The Conservatives made a promise in 2011 for just such a plan, but it was nowhere to be seen in the 2012 budget. We could only assume they did not change the existing budget-to-budget approach because they like the partisan politics, the photo ops, and putting Conservative Party logos on government cheques and parading them before the media.
I will end with a quote from the MP for Trinity—Spadina. She said:
Canadians are tired of boil water advisories and dodging potholes, and they're tired of being stuck in traffic jams and packed buses. I proposed a practical plan for long-term infrastructure and I'm hopeful that the Conservatives will work with me.
I am hopeful, too. Healthy communities make for healthy provinces, which make for a healthy nation. That is Canadian policy 101.