Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. As I said in my speech, he is one of the members of this House who understands how important infrastructure is, since he is a former municipal mayor.
To answer his question, as I said many times in my speech, the minister is not immune to having to answer legitimate questions from the opposition regarding taxpayers' money. Let us be clear: what we are debating today is votes that the Conservative Party opposes.
The more than $800,000 that was spent was probably excessive. My colleague and I agree on that. However, at the end of the day, the department's operating budget is $110 million. Should we ask the minister questions about how money is spent? Certainly, but there are also some objectives to be achieved. For now, I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
He spoke about doing politics differently. We still share some priorities. I can say that the mayors in my riding, and certainly in other ridings across Canada, at least want to know that we are working with the government to try to achieve these objectives. We will talk again to determine whether the objectives were achieved, and we can certainly ask questions. That is our job as opposition members.