Finance committee  Absolutely. He's our past-president.

Finance committee  He was a volunteer firefighter. In fact, he was a fire chief.

Finance committee  Certainly what I can tell you is that, as an association of local government, we supported that initiative and we spoke in favour of that initiative, as you heard from our president last year, Hans Cunningham, at this very committee, who spoke in favour of it.

Finance committee  What I can say to you on that, obviously, is that doctors and nurses in our rural communities are extremely important. Again, that was an initiative that we were supportive of. We actually called for that in terms of our election platform and in the issues we were looking for the

Finance committee  I think any initiative like that certainly can assist in attracting folks. I can tell you even in my own community, which is a large urban centre in southwestern Ontario, we have had our challenges attracting physicians and specialists. Any sort of incentive program that exists w

Finance committee  Even if we don't see any sort of indexation going forward, over the next 20 years, because of inflation and population growth, we will in effect lose the purchasing power of about 50% of that $2 billion figure. That's why we talk about the long-term plan and the need to look at s

Finance committee  Again, I'm not going to get into a debate on the merits or lack thereof of some of these particular fiscal approaches. What I will focus on is the fact that we as local government believe that certain successes are achieved by investing in infrastructure. Jobs are created.

Finance committee  As I indicated earlier, the most current numbers we have are the ones from our 2007 report. And the first step of any new plan would be to take stock of where we sit.

Finance committee  I believe it's very important to emphasize that one of the clear messages we heard from our members was the need to have reliable, stable funding that they can count on toward dealing with the capital infrastructure investments they need to plan for going forward. One of the cha

Finance committee  I don't think I'm going to get into the debate about what the priorities of this government should be in terms of one issue versus another. What I will make a strong case for is what the Canadian municipal government sector needs in communities of all sizes, from our smallest tow

Finance committee  I think it's fair to say that nobody can call into question the fact that there has been significant progress made in municipalities over the last few years in tackling the infrastructure challenges that local governments across this country have. Having said that, I think we equ

Finance committee  Again, I think it's important to remember that the focus is really on developing that long-term plan and really doing an assessment of exactly where we're at amongst the municipalities of this country in terms of that deficit going forward, so that we can collectively develop an

Finance committee  Sure, very quickly, unequivocally, we believe it is necessary to index it in the long run. What that indexation should look like and what it is based on is obviously a matter of discussion that we believe is part of that long-term plan we're speaking of.

Finance committee  Thank you very much for that question. As you point out, when we released our report in 2007 it really talked about two numbers: an infrastructure deficit of $123 billion and a need for about another $115 billion over the next 20 years in new infrastructure that was needed in thi

Finance committee  Thank you very much, and good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the House finance committee. On behalf of the 2,000 member cities and communities of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you again this evening as you c