Madam Speaker, I would like to tell my colleague that private funding could double the cost of infrastructure projects. In the end, it is the population that is going to have to pay, whether because of increased user fees or increased public disbursements.
We are already seeing the evidence in Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec. The Quebec auditor general has estimated that the province would have saved $10.4 billion if we had built the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal based on the conventional public model instead of a public-private partnership. I would like to know what my colleague thinks about this and if he thinks that the argument we are making here today makes sense.
The numbers are clear: the sole purpose of infrastructure banks is to make a profit; they contribute nothing to the population. The government says that the middle class is important and that it is doing all it can to help it, but it is clear that this bank will provide no new infrastructures for communities, that it will not improve services and that it will not benefit the population, since it is going to be too expensive.