Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his excellent question.
He is right. The government's infrastructure program is very helpful to municipalities. As a mayor in my former life, I was able to benefit from the program and passed that on to my municipality.
This program helps municipalities complete infrastructure work within a reasonable time frame. However, the problem is that the numbers announced in the last Conservative government budget were shared with municipalities in 2010. Now it has become a permanent program, but the new money that we would have liked to see added to the program is not there.
Unfortunately, there is no money for 2013. There is just $203 million on top of the $53 billion for 2014. There is only $203 million for 2015. In fact, municipalities will have access to all of the money only after the 2015 election.
The government is being proactive, but the majority of the money will be available for use only after 2015.