Mr. Speaker, the issue of the funding formula for public transit in this budget is a very curious one in light of the government's proclamations that it respects the jurisdictions of other levels of government.
The government is imposing, through the public transit funding, when that funding finally comes through in three years, a funding mechanism that will require that cities engage in private-public partnerships to build their public transit.
It ought to be left to cities, and the citizens of those cities, to determine the best way to build the transit they require. The government ought not to be imposing on cities a funding mechanism. Councillors and mayors of many cities who I talk to are struggling under the mandatory PPP screen that already exists for infrastructure. It imposes enormous administrative burdens on cities for which the federal government does not pay. It delays money getting out so the infrastructure can actually be built.
It is similar to the same disrespect the government has for other funding obligations it imposes on cities across the country. It has decided in its wisdom to amend the regulations to waste water treatment. The implications of that are $18 billion of required capital expenditures that will have to be borne by municipalities across the country.
These are not insignificant amounts. They are enormous amounts of money that the government has imposed on municipalities with absolutely no support. Metro Vancouver will have to pay $1.5 billion in order to implement these new regulations. For Halifax, it is almost $1 billion; Cape Breton, $423 million; Montreal, Quebec, over $1 billion; and so on and so forth.
For smaller communities, these become incredibly onerous per capita charges. For the town of Burgeo, Newfoundland, whose member is sitting directly in front of me, the per capita cost is somewhere between $24,000 and $27,000 to implement these waste water treatment regulations, with absolutely no support from the federal government for those municipalities.