Mr. Speaker, I had the great honour when I was a child to be Marshall McLuhan's paperboy. Marshall McLuhan had a lot to say about advertising. One of the things he said baffled him was why anyone would do it when nobody believes it. There is a certain validity to that because when we look at these ads, we cannot believe them because in fact they are not true.
Nowhere is that more profoundly obvious than on the infrastructure ads that we see running on television. The Conservatives claim to be spending new dollars on infrastructure, and yet the budget documents clearly indicate there is no new money in the budget this year, and no new money was there last year.
When we ask questions about it, the Conservatives cite things like the gas tax, which is something that a Liberal government put in place. They seem to think that answers the questions being asked.
However, when we talk to the mayor of Vancouver and ask what he got in new building Canada funds last year, the answer is zero. When we ask the mayor of Calgary, the answer is zero: Winnipeg, zero; Regina, zero; Toronto, zero; Mississauga, zero; Ottawa, zero; Montreal, zero; Halifax, zero. There is not a single new penny in new building Canada infrastructure funds that the government has announced as the biggest rollout in the history of the country. It has never been rolled out.
However, the advertising has landed in these cities faster than the infrastructure dollars. There is a problem there. Conservatives can quote scandals and problems that have existed with other governments until they are quite literally blue in the face.
Let us talk about a specific scandal and all the money wasted building railroads in the country. Imagine if all the bribes paid to Conservatives had actually been spent on building rail infrastructure back to the time of Confederation. How much better would our rail system would be if John A. Macdonald had not been so corrupt? I do not see the Conservatives threatening to call an inquiry into themselves on that one.