Mr. Speaker, infrastructure is very important. That is why we brought forward the Building Canada fund when we were in government. We brought forward a number of infrastructure programs that were the largest at that time.
Yes, the Liberal government has piled on more infrastructure funding—or should I say announcements? The announcements have been made, but the funding is not happening. The announcements have been made, but the shovels are not in the ground. The announcements have been made, and remade in some cases, but people are not being hired to fill the jobs for that infrastructure.
Do we have an infrastructure deficit in this country? I think we do. We have an aged and growing infrastructure deficit, unquestionably, but in all fairness, we have to make sure that it is not only the federal government that is providing for infrastructure; we have to make sure that we are also including the private sector in the infrastructure deficit. The private sector needs to be involved to add funding and provide efficiencies so that projects can be completed on time and on budget.
I do not know if the current government has a plan on its infrastructure, other than being Santa Claus. I am not certain there is a strategy on how it wants to do it, unless it is a political one. However, I do not see a lot of money being put into a driving economy where there would be that growth that we need. My home province of Alberta is a prime example. Ontario has its manufacturing sector, but Alberta is a driving economy that needs to be kick-started again.
We have problems with the provincial government there. We need something that will get people working again. There are over 100,000 oilfield workers out of work. That is totally unacceptable, yet we see infrastructure dollars going here, there, and everywhere. In fact, in the oil sector we see some of the incentives for exploratory drilling being taken away.
In a downturn, we should incentivize jobs and job creation. However, the Liberals take them away. I am not going to go into this long list of the bad things that they have done in this budget, but I can say that when we are not including infrastructure dollars or helping create exploration in the oil sector, we cannot expect to get new jobs in that sector. Maybe that—