Mr. Speaker, it is not arm's length because the minister has to approve the financing of projects.
I want to talk about some of the alternative facts. The minister spoke about sustainable funding. The Conservative government brought in the gas tax that went directly to communities. He talked about historical spending on infrastructure of $180 billion. There are $90 billion in the existing Conservative programs. We announced 7,800 projects and completed 7,300, which was 94%.
Pages 266 and 277 in budget 2017 talk about lapsed funding. There was so much red tape that there were $1 billion in lapsed funding, something the Liberal government said it would never do. If there were any money, it would go back to communities. We see in the budget that it will not be reallocated until 2022. When will communities be receiving their money?