Government Operations committee  With...?

Government Operations committee  I'll be happy to share with you some of the requests I have received.

Government Operations committee  Every announcement that will be made will be made in public and will be completely open and transparent.

Government Operations committee  I'm not going to unilaterally--

Government Operations committee  I'm not going to unilaterally go--

Government Operations committee  I have to work cooperatively with the provinces. You have a decision to make.

Government Operations committee  No. We're going to work constructively with provinces and agree on a series of projects to support. I am not going to.... You have a big decision to make.

Government Operations committee  You're not the government.

Government Operations committee  It sounds like you have a very big decision to make.

Government Operations committee  Here's what we have to do. We have to work constructively with provinces, and we'll meet with municipalities. I don't think it is constructive, for example, in our case in Ontario, to put my provincial counterpart on the receiving line of a big list. We'll sit down and cooperatively work out arrangements with provinces and municipalities.

Government Operations committee  I think what we're looking to identify, what we are identifying now, are projects that are ready to go or can be ready to go in a matter of weeks or months, that would not otherwise proceed. If a municipality wanted to build a new road or do sewer upgrades, and it's already intending to move forward with that this year, obviously we don't want simply to replace money that was already spent.

Government Operations committee  You can't be a little bit pregnant.

Government Operations committee  That's not all entirely within my department. I identified three new programs that are coming forward. If those proponents are able to move expeditiously and get shovels in the ground, and they need reimbursement and money up front to make those things happen, I don't want them to have to wait.

Government Operations committee  We will be coming forward in short order with the specifics on that. I think we'll take an asymmetrical approach on a province-by-province basis. Obviously, for a province like P.E.I., their pool of money is demonstrably smaller than a province like Ontario. If we can sit down with the province, identify a group of projects that can move right away, and get going in a matter of a few weeks, obviously that's better than putting out a call for proposals and waiting six months for them to be evaluated before you move.

Government Operations committee  I am not going to make a unilateral announcement with respect to those projects because we work in cooperation with the provinces. For example, in Quebec, I'm not going to simply say to Quebec, without consulting with the Quebec government, “Here are the projects we're going to fund”.