Mr. Speaker, I really want to thank the member for giving me an opportunity, if she is not aware, to inform the House that the rural caucus has been working for a year and a half now with the Minister of Infrastructure on a particular issue that we think is extremely important for rural municipalities and rural Canadians.
Just this last month, and in fact just this week, I announced in my riding, on behalf of the Minister of Infrastructure, that small municipalities of under 5,000 will now only have to pay their portion of the infrastructure dollars under the northern rural component at 7%. We put that in specifically because we recognize that small municipalities are going to have a difficult time participating in our infrastructure program.
The last one, communities under 100,000 are going to be able to access the rural and economic infrastructure program at 17% versus the third-third-third that everybody else does, and the way the Tories used to do it.
We are listening and we do want municipalities and first nations to participate in growing rural Canada. That is why we have reduced the formula for them, and the amount of money they would have to put forward in any proposal. I think that is great news and the beginning of their being able to put proposals together that they can to afford to pursue.