Mr. Speaker, I rose in the House late last year to ask a specific question about federal infrastructure spending and referenced the city of Calgary.

I suggested that perhaps the problem Calgary was having was that it had not elected enough members of the government to this House in order to receive its fair share of infrastructure spending.

We have heard through repeated questions that the government claims it is making the largest investment in infrastructure in the history of this country. Let me explain what that means to the city of Calgary, as the big city mayors gather in Toronto as we speak to discuss the crisis on this very subject.

Last year Calgary got the grand total from the new building fund of zero dollars. There was not one penny. This year, again, zero dollars, not one penny. That is two straight years without a single investment from the government and the new building fund, despite the claims that it is a grand fund and a big fund.

Cities like Calgary, cities right across this country, and even small towns, for example we heard about Sydney, Nova Scotia this week, are getting nothing from the government this year, and they got nothing last year.

The problem with the fund as it is being proposed is that it is back-end loaded. Those of us with municipal experience and those of us who have watched government accounts know what this means. All of the money comes in the latter years of the program and none of the money is doled out on a consistent basis.

Canadian cities, and we will hear it from the big city mayors tomorrow as they meet in Toronto, are asking for a very simple commitment from the government. They do not want big funding announcements that get handed out sporadically and are back-end loaded. What they need is consistent and robust funding this year and every year.

The challenge the cities are facing is that without that funding arriving in city coffers on an annual basis, in a consistent and predictable way, they are unable to do the planning that is required to sustain growth in the cities.

In Calgary, with the oil market in decline and with oil prices dropping, and with the announcement this week that the housing market is very soft and prices dropping, it means that people are being unemployed in that city due to cuts at places like Suncor. What they also are not getting, despite the promise of the government, in terms of infrastructure support, are jobs to pick up the slack as other parts of the economy start to fail.

The call we have been making and the request we make of the government is to stop talking about these plans as being big unless they are big every year, to stop talking about them as a plan if they are simply back-end loaded, and to allow cities to move forward with constructive plans that make sense for the residents of their cities.

In the city of Calgary, it is very clear what that money is needed for. The money is needed, in particular, for transit. The request that we are going to see coming straight out of city hall will be for the Green Line transitway, $150 million; the goods and movement package which is going to refine and fix overpasses right across the city of Calgary, $78 million. They also need support for disaster resiliency funding and they are not getting it.

Zero dollars this year; zero dollars last year. When the government stands up and claims, as it will, I am sure, I have heard the speech, that this money is large, robust and is going to meet the needs of Calgary, the city of Calgary quite clearly, in concert with other big cities across this country, is saying zero dollars is not funding.

Zero dollars now is not meeting the needs of Calgary now. The challenge with receiving the funding in 10 years is, as we have seen with the government, that there is always an opportunity for governments to bail on the programs, to cut when they see recessions heading their way, and not sustain these commitments.

What we are asking the government to do is very clear. Will it make the funding available immediately? Will it roll these programs out immediately? Will the funding start to arrive at the same time the billboards come?

It is $29 million for billboards that arrive now; zero dollars for Calgary this year and zero dollars last year. That is unacceptable. Make a change, please.

Adam Vaughan

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