Transport committee  The local elections certainly played a role, but we must also take into account that municipal officials have their own plans for infrastructure, for...

Transport committee  I know, I know...

Transport committee  I know, but the only reason I mentioned it is to clarify that we were not given carte blanche. Plans were in place. The elected members made the decisions, but they did so based on a list of projects prepared by officials. So it is a factor in the provinces, but it is just one a

Transport committee  On the gas tax question, there is no question that the gas tax is a cornerstone to the ongoing support for municipalities and municipal infrastructure into the future--absolutely. We would like to underline this and to certainly acknowledge the governments, past and present, for

Transport committee  No. We do know that things were slow off the mark in B.C. because of the provincial election. There is a letter, I believe, coming to the committee from the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, saying that things are on track, things are in good shape. But no, we haven't he

Transport committee  We think the context we've been through in the last two years has demonstrated very clearly that to tackle national priorities the three orders of government must work together. If they do work together, it can be very efficient and effective. Let's identify the key national pri

Transport committee  There are examples of those cost savings across the country. We don't operate on a project-by-project basis at FCM, so we don't get into that level of detail, but we know of situations where there have been savings.

Transport committee  Yes, of course we would. I'm certainly not going to comment on the selection and distribution in the country. It wasn't part of the municipal role to be involved in that in any way whatsoever. Certainly, the expectation is that programs are accessible to all municipalities across

Transport committee  Certainly there's a need for long-term and planned funding for infrastructure. There's no question about that. As we said earlier, the idea of having a period of time to plan and develop the longer-term vision would then, we would think, set the framework for following up with th

Transport committee  Oh. Sorry.

Transport committee  It was a way of responding to a crisis.

Transport committee  Everyone understood that the urgency was important. The deadline was important. All of that was part of the context that we were responding to. If in the future we're operating in a context that is not a crisis context, then no, we wouldn't see that as the ideal. But all the othe

Transport committee  To me, the main beneficiary was our country. Municipalities were part of the work and part of the benefits of that, for sure.

Transport committee  Great. Thank you. Of course we're always interested in anything related to infrastructure, so we really appreciate being invited here today. I should say that our president, Berry Vrbanovic, a councillor from Kitchener, was not able to be here today. He has a council meeting

Transport committee  We believe very strongly that infrastructure generally is an essential foundation for the economic competitiveness of our country. Within that framework of infrastructure and the discussions of the commitments of the government to long-term infrastructure planning, it's really cl