Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. Obviously, in the limited time I had for my speech, I did not get around to addressing the matter of infrastructure very much. I am glad to do so now.
Again, the Conservative government is using infrastructure as a political tool. I have two examples. The first is from 2012, when the Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs announced the new building Canada program—not funding, just the new program—with great fanfare. The government said that the municipalities could use the communities fund, not the gas tax, as they saw fit, particularly for infrastructure projects related to sports and culture and so forth.
In 2013, when the conditions for the building Canada program were presented, the municipalities were denied the chance to use this fund for their own needs, particularly the municipalities that had already addressed their needs in terms of roads or water and wastewater systems. That is the situation the mayor of Rimouski finds himself in today. He was told he could use this fund, which is generally shared one-third, one-third, one-third between the federal, provincial and municipal governments. Today, Ottawa claims to know more than the mayor of Rimouski about what that municipality needs. Ottawa is telling the mayor that he can use the gas tax, but that will not be nearly enough to pay for the projects for a city like Rimouski. That is the first example.
The second example is that the Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and Intergovernmental Affairs still claims that this is a major investment program. Sure, there is funding for public transit in big cities such as Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. However, to start with, there is very little funding and it just does not cut it. Honestly, the funding for the first year for the City of Toronto might be enough for half a subway station.
That the government is boasting about investing in infrastructure in this manner is beyond comprehension. The use of the 150th celebrations as a political tool is also reprehensible. The Conservatives will pay for that in 2015.