The truth hurts at times but the truth needs to be said.
Madam Speaker, I have done quite well in terms of not standing up, because I hear many members of the opposition stand in their place and talk about the exact same things that I am talking about, but maybe not being as harsh on my friends in the NDP. I will try to stay away from being so harsh and look at ways in which we are supposed to be adding further thoughts on today. That is the issue of the infrastructure investment and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That is what the NDP moved an amendment on to the budget. I realize very few members have actually talked about that, but I want to at the very least make reference to it because what we hear from across the way is again a false impression.
The members tried to give the impression that Canada is actually spending money on infrastructure in China in a very significant way. I thought it was interesting that one of the most significant investments that it made was actually in the Philippines. In the Philippines, where there were issues related to flooding, there was a commitment of just under half a billion dollars providing flood protection. Flood protection is important, I know. Manitoba is a province that has often had floods, and we have invested in flood protection and it works. It has saved the City of Winnipeg billions of dollars over the years.
We have the Asian infrastructure bank, which does some fine work that might not have taken place. Not that long ago, some serious floods took place in the Philippines and at the time members on all sides of this House stood up and called on the Canadian government to do something. We had individuals in every region in our country; it went far beyond the Filipino heritage community, which continues to grow and be prosperous and add to our very rich heritage. People responded to the flooding in the Philippines, not only by providing comments but by providing hundreds of thousands of dollars and the Canadian government responded to that.
This is some of the work that is being done with the Asian infrastructure bank. However, if people listen to the opposition that is not the impression they would receive. One of the things we do exceptionally well in Canada is the high level of expertise of individuals who have infrastructure experience. Investing in the Asian infrastructure bank allows Canada to better compete, with the expertise that we have to offer the world. If people listen to the opposition, they would think that we are throwing the money away. That is not the case because that money ultimately will come back and there is a very good chance there will be a healthy dividend on it. Therefore, we are contributing to the development in many areas of the world, particularly in that Asian area, in a very humanitarian way as in the example I just cited, and allowing Canadian expertise and possibly even Canadian companies to participate in the process.
It is a bit ironic. We hear Conservatives talk about how bad this thing is because of infrastructure dollars going out of Canada, and yet here we have a Minister of Finance who has invested more in infrastructure with historic record highs, hundreds of millions going toward billions of dollars invested into our infrastructure.
The government has excelled at investing in Canada's infrastructure. By building infrastructure, we support the middle class, and the healthier the middle class, the healthier our infrastructure, the better we all will be.