Mr. Speaker, I rise today to try to get clarification to a question I asked not so long ago involving infrastructure and in particular housing.
At that time I asked for the government's response to the information that close to 5,000 seniors in the city of Winnipeg and in the province of Manitoba were going to lose their housing because of the government's failure—in fact, its deliberate choice—not to renew housing agreements and sustain subsidies. Many of these house seniors in particular in Manitoba. The response I got back was, “Don't worry; everything is okay. We are renewing housing agreements.” Those housing agreements do not, will not, and have not sustained or secured those seniors' future. In fact, it has all been put at risk, and that is wrong.
My question also talked about the fact that infrastructure dollars, which amounted to $2 billion just a few years ago, have been reduced to about $210 million over the last calendar year. This constitutes a 90% cut to infrastructure spending in this country, in particular for municipalities.
I was on a television panel with the Parliamentary Secretary for Infrastructure and Communities, who said, “No, that's not true. Money is being delivered.” However, I was on that panel with six other mayors across Canada—the mayors of Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and Mississauga—and they all confirmed that their infrastructure allotment from the federal government last year was zero dollars. In fact, the parliamentary secretary's own riding, which contains the city of Kitchener, not only received zero dollars in 2014 but also received zero dollars in 2013 as well, and because of the delay in the budget, it is now in a position to get zero dollars this year. The government is missing in action.
As I said, the response I got back from the minister of social development at the time was that a federal project in a part of my riding that I used to represent on city council went over budget. Somehow she blamed a local councillor for a federal program going over budget when it was her department that allocated the money and signed off on the budget allocation. How that happened is beyond me. Her department spends money, and I get blamed because her department does not do due diligence and check its books. That is a new kind of accountability model, I guess, in Canada: the federal government chooses how to spend the money and then blames local politicians when things go wrong, as opposed to taking responsibility.
On the infrastructure file, it is absolutely clear that the current government has cut infrastructure spending for municipalities by 90% this year. It was $2 billion two years ago and it is $210 million this year. While the Conservatives talk about an extended program over 10 years and the fact that it is the largest in Canada, what they do not explain to Canadians is that it is back-end loaded, which means that there was no money last year and, because the budget has been delayed even as city councils across the country are setting their own budgets, there is no money this year. When we couple that with the fact that they have pulled out of housing agreements across this country, people in Winnipeg and Toronto are looking at waiting lists that are growing longer and repair bills that are getting higher, and they do not have a federal government as a partner.
My question is a very simple one. Will the government commit to renewing the housing agreements and the subsidies for people in Manitoba and will it increase infrastructure spending in this year's budget?