I notice my hon. colleague finds this particularly funny but I am dealing with my own riding and not his.
I am honoured to be splitting my time with the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming who will be following me today.
To put this in historical context, I would like to talk about the Canada infrastructure works program that was introduced by the federal government in 1994. As a $6 billion temporary cost-shared initiative, it was a program that went particularly well for us in our region back in the early part of the 1990s because a lot of the infrastructure that was done in the 1960s had upgrades.
One of the biggest issues in my riding is drinking water. Many of the communities, far above the average, I might add, are currently on a boil water order. This is a major issue for reasons that are obvious. It is a universal right for everyone to have clean drinking water. My hon. colleague from Lac-Saint-Louis spoke eloquently about that and I commend him for that.
One of the things we need to talk about here is that we need the infrastructure in place, even in smaller communities, and this is not cheap. It is not inexpensive to bring the facilities up to par to allow people to have clean drinking water. I am talking about small towns with populations of 200, 400 or 500 people. The majority of the communities in my riding have 2,000 or 3,000 people. Of the over 200 towns in my riding, the largest town, Grand Falls-Windsor, has 13,000 people. To say that the delivery of infrastructure in my riding is a challenge might be considered by some as an understatement.
The municipalities of Newfoundland and Labrador have many smaller communities that are struggling to provide the services they need because of the structure we have today. In 1997, the government announced an extension of what it called phase 2, which provided an additional $425 million and a further $850 million. I add these numbers simply because what we are talking about here is an incredible amount of money. This, in turn, creates work beyond that. The local economy is stimulated by the construction jobs that are created. We also provide services for businesses when we want to attract business.
I talked about the water supply. If a particular fish plant closes down in my riding and another company wants to take over that fish plant, which probably employs somewhere in the vicinity of 200 to 300 workers, in order for it to do that it needs to have a good, clean, reliable water supply. Otherwise, 300 jobs or more are gone all because of the lack of infrastructure.
Plants that rely on natural resources usually require a huge workforce. These plants are usually the only game in town, the only employer and, therefore, municipal infrastructure is incredibly important
It was expected that infrastructure funding at the time would be matched fully at the municipal level because of difficulty in raising their one-third share as a prerequisite. This is the quintessential point for me to raise today and the challenges that we have with rural infrastructure. We are talking about one-third, one-third and one-third. I will focus on the last one-third, which is the municipality's responsibility to raise that money. When we are talking about a multi-million dollar upgrade on infrastructure, that is a tremendous burden and responsibility for the municipality.
I would like to go back to the point I made earlier about fish plants and saw mills needing reliable municipal infrastructure in order to survive. If that game leaves town, what kind of business tax or revenue can a small municipality maintain? It needs to seek out financing from the bank but that becomes very difficult to do when its credit rating and tax base are not there.
I understand and acknowledge that there is some talk in the budget about financing but where is it and how does this work? If this is to be shovel ready, then the financing option needs to be really quick or the situation will crumble.
I would also like to talk about recreation in the sense of community centres that mostly consist of stadiums. In Newfoundland we call hockey arenas stadiums and everywhere else they are called arenas, but I will preface that and call them stadiums.
Back in 1967, we had a centennial fund that went toward building many of the stadiums in smaller communities. It was not so much an economic boom, obviously, because the revenues were somewhat limited, but these stadiums became a social centrepiece of every small community. In 1967, in the last campaign, the Liberal Party put forward a proposal that allowed the stadiums or the arenas, to be refurbished and brought up to a standard whereby the community could survive.
The plan here today is to provide money for recreation in smaller communities. It is a great idea but the nub of the issue is that it wants it cost shared fifty-fifty.
Some of my hon. colleagues over there have said that we cannot just give the municipalities a blank cheque. They are not getting a cheque at all, nothing, blank or any other kind. What we are doing is telling them that they will have a certain amount of stimulus money so their community or recreation facility can provide services, but not quite so. We need their cheque.
How will I be able to go to a place like Bishop's Falls, Botwood or Buchans and tell the people that the $1 million they need for their stadium, that we need their $500,000? These are towns of about 600 or 700 people. Is this financing? Will this provide them with the money they need? I really have my doubts, which is why we are debating here today. This is the issue that is repeated. People from many of the towns in my riding are calling and asking me how this will work and why they need to put up money.
My hon. colleague talked about the process by which the gas tax funding flows. The gas tax and the incremental funding is what we are looking at because it provides that money and hooks the municipalities up to an immediate investment. That is shovel ready, if that is the term we would like to throw out. I would not want to think that the only way we are applying shovel ready is when anybody in the ministry actually speaks. That would be very sad.
I spoke earlier about basic facilities like drinking water. Many towns in my riding, such as Bonavista and New West Valley, drinking water has been a problem on and off. Broadband Internet is also an issue that has not been included enough in the infrastructure spending. I acknowledge the fact that there is money in the budget, so I would like to see more detail on that as well.
I want to talk about towns like Bonavista. I have heard from New West Valley, Trinity Bay North, Little Catalina, Elliston, Botwood, and Buchans. These are the towns that are the lifeblood of what we know as rural Canada but the challenges and the bar that the government has set is so high that this will prove to be insurmountable for most of the small communities. They are the lifeblood and that is the point I wanted to make today.
