Mr. Jean invited us to share our comments and I thank him for the invitation. But I would like to tell him that I would have still done so.
Mr. Chair, you took the words right out of my mouth, which is not very hygienic on your part. Pursuant to Standing Order 75(1), this motion is actually out of order. But I would still like to hear what Transport Canada thinks about the differences between Bill and Bill . That would make things easier.
I cannot support Mr. Jean's motion because, first of all, it is out of order, and second, we don't have a choice. I could quote Audrey O'Brien and Marc Bosc, but if we agree unanimously that Mr. Jean should withdraw his motion, it would be a lot easier. However, I want to add that the Bloc Québécois does not intend to reinvent the wheel. We have already heard from witnesses on this bill, which seems quite similar. It is not necessary to go through the process and hear from the same witnesses once again. This committee should try to be efficient. I feel we could proceed very quickly with the clause-by-clause study of this new bill.
As to my not wishing to hear from the same witnesses again, I would need to check some things with my colleague Mr. Nadeau, the member for Gatineau, who is directly involved. Whatever he has to say, I will defer to his arguments on the issue. My main request is not to hear from the witnesses again. Thank you.
:
That was the original plan. This will just authorize the funding of it when we make the final dates available.
So do we have agreement on that...?
(Motion agreed to)
The Chair: Thank you.
We have two other things, very briefly. Because of the timeframe of 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., I've asked if we should bring in a light meal. I need a motion to do that. The motion would say that the clerk be authorized to order a meal when the committee meets over lunch between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Is that agreed?
(Motion agreed to)
The Chair: Thank you.
The last bit of business is that the minister has agreed to appear on October 28. We will be asking that the appearance be televised, so I'm advising the committee of that request now. Okay?
The last thing I have before we bring our guests here.... Actually, I'll wait until the end of meeting for it.
At this point, I would like to invite our guests to come to the witness table, please.
Actually, while they are getting settled, I'll just advise members again. I sent a memo to the committee members. It was an invitation by Air Transat to meet with the committee, and the date has been set. If you choose to come, we have seven people who have already said yes, but if there are others, we would like to confirm the numbers in the next short while. Thank you.
Welcome to our witnesses today.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study of the impact of the Government of Canada's deadline of March 31, 2011, for completion of projects under the infrastructure stimulus fund and the recreational infrastructure Canada program, joining us from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities are Mr. Brock Carlton, chief executive officer, and Gabriel Miller, director, government and media relations. From the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, we have with us Mr. Dale Harvey, assistant executive director.
We thank you for being here today. I don't know if you guys have tossed a coin as to who is going to start, but the floor is open.
Mr. Carlton, please.
:
On behalf of our 1,900 members, I would like to thank you for inviting us today. This discussion is important for our members. I would also like to say that our president, Mr. Hans Cunningham, was not available this morning, but he sends his regards.
[English]
I am going to make some fairly brief remarks so that we have a lot of time for questions and answers. There are really three topics we would like to talk about today. The first is what the municipalities have done to make the economic action plan a success. Next, what is the status, from our perspective today, with respect to the economic action plan, and what are the next steps we think the government should take? Finally, I will finish with a word about what is really our top priority: building a vision for when stimulus is finished.
Before getting to that, though, there are two points I'd really like to underline. One is that municipalities have a huge stake in Canada's stimulus plan. We have been working flat out to make it a success, and we want to put every single dollar to use in the stimulus plan to create jobs and continue building a stronger Canada.
The second thing I want to underline is that we really welcome the recent commitment by the government to be fair and reasonable when it comes to the stimulus deadline.
First, let's talk a bit about what we have achieved. What I remember is that two years ago, Canada fell into the worst recession, and municipalities came forward saying that we were ready to help, that we were ready to play our role in fighting this national crisis.
At that time, FCM produced some research showing that the best way to create jobs and the best way to boost the economy was to invest in infrastructure. In fact, our research said that when fighting a recession, investing in infrastructure is twice as effective as tax cuts. In the weeks before the economic action plan, we produced a list of shovel-ready projects just to demonstrate that municipalities were ready and able to respond very quickly in this kind of crisis. We had the facts on our side, and we were ready to go to work to fight this national crisis.
In January 2009, we applauded the government's decision to make infrastructure a cornerstone of the economic action plan. In the following months, new funding was rolled out in record time, but as in all these programs, there were some challenges. It took time for the government to negotiate funding agreements, design programs, and approve projects in 13 provinces and territories. These challenges created time pressures that we're still feeling and still trying to deal with today.
Let's be honest. There's no denying that we achieved an awful lot in 20 months since the stimulus plan was launched. More than 20,000 stimulus projects are under way. There has been more than $10 billion worth of investment from the different orders of government. We have created over 100,000 jobs. That's more than 50%, or half the jobs promised when the economic action plan was launched.
Where are we today?
I said that municipalities have been working flat out. Infrastructure Canada has been working closely with the provinces and territories to monitor these projects. They found that the vast majority of the projects are under way and are on track. As for FCM, we have been keeping close tabs on our members. We talk to our colleagues in the provinces and territories across the country, and they're all telling us that in most places, most projects are on or ahead of schedule. But there are communities and regions where circumstances have caused delays, such as flooding in Saskatchewan and hurricanes in Newfoundland. These all have an impact on progress toward the end of these projects.
But there are also communities where projects got off to an unusually late start because of drawn-out, lengthy negotiations between the federal government and the provinces and delays in program design and project approval. This is particularly significant in the province of Quebec. Every day, our members in Quebec are working hard towards completing these projects, but many of them are behind schedule, and there will need to be some flexibility provided.
What's next? We continue to work together—federal, provincial, territorial, and municipal governments—to help pull Canada out of this recession. Things have not gone perfectly. This is a highly complicated program to deliver, and this is why we have been calling for flexibility all along.
When it comes to the stimulus deadline, we welcome the federal government's promise to be fair and reasonable. We really have three recommendations for the government for it to live up to this commitment.
First, the government should commit immediately to showing flexibility wherever a community has worked hard and played by the rules but requires more time to finish stimulus projects. It should encourage the provinces and territories to do the same thing.
Second, the government should direct the public service to start working with individual communities to adjust project schedules as necessary.
Third, the federal government must work with the Province of Quebec to develop a strategy for completing stimulus projects in that province.
In conclusion, up until now all three stimulus partners have shown flexibility where necessary. In setting up the program, the government showed flexibility in negotiating with each province and territory a program that fit their particular regional needs. Municipalities showed flexibility by coming forward with a bunch of projects, keeping them alive, and waiting while the program was set up, the agreements were put in place, and the projects were improved.
Now, as we enter the home stretch of the stimulus plan, it's clear that continued flexibility is the key to continued success. But as I said at the start, there's one final thing we would like to underline, and that is the question of what happens when stimulus is done.
We believe that we need a long-term plan for investing in our infrastructure in our communities, a plan that goes beyond the next six months. I'm not talking about more stimulus; I'm not talking about more short-term spending. We know we're into a period of fiscal constraint; we know the coffers are really tight and the lean years are upon us. Thus, we believe it's really important to take this moment to take time to take stock of our long-term infrastructure needs, to start designing the next generation of federal infrastructure programs, and to understand that infrastructure is critical to our economic health and competitiveness.
This period of time gives us a chance to plan so that as the economy strengthens and the resources become available, the resources can follow a plan that is in place and move quickly to support ongoing infrastructure investments in this country. That way, when the fiscal outlook improves, we will be in a position to protect our recent gains and build infrastructure needs to thrive in a 21st-century Canada.
Merci beaucoup de votre attention.
:
Good morning. My name is Dale Harvey. I am currently the assistant executive director for the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, more commonly known as SARM. On November 1 of this year, I'll be taking over the duties of executive director.
President Marit sends his regrets on being unable to make this presentation on behalf of SARM. He is currently making a presentation to the Standing Committee on Finance as part of the pre-budget consultations.
I'd like to begin by thanking the standing committee for inviting us here to share our thoughts on the stimulus funding and the project completion deadline. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to make representations on behalf of SARM and rural Saskatchewan. SARM represents all 296 rural municipalities--commonly known as RMs--in the province of Saskatchewan and acts as the common voice of rural Saskatchewan. All members belong to SARM on a voluntary basis.
We'd like to thank the federal government for the funds provided to Saskatchewan's rural municipalities through the stimulus programs. The funding assisted with various types of projects, such as local road and bridge construction, arena upgrades, water facility upgrades, and lagoon expansions. These projects have provided work for many people in the province and have provided a boost to the local economy.
The majority of the funding allocated to rural Saskatchewan went to local road and bridge infrastructure projects. Local road and bridge infrastructure is vital to Saskatchewan's commerce and industry. As a landlocked province, we have very few transportation options. The province's economy is very much commodity- and export-driven, with agricultural products, potash, and oil and gas being major players. These commodities and resources are almost exclusively located in rural areas and utilize rural municipal road systems to reach their markets.
In 2008, Associated Engineering reported that approximately $567 million over the next 15 years would be required to repair and replace the rural bridge system. In 2009, the AECOM engineering firm reported that approximately $225 million per year would be required to maintain and replace 130,000 kilometres of rural gravel roads.
It's estimated that in order for RMs to fully fund roads and bridges, an additional $389 million would need to be levied from the RM tax base annually. With the expanding economy, these numbers are only going to increase. Rural municipalities do not have the ability to finance this infrastructure by themselves. The continued assistance of provincial and federal governments is vital and very much appreciated.
As you most likely have heard, this past spring and summer in Saskatchewan have been exceptionally wet--not at all ideal for constructing infrastructure. This has delayed many projects that in a normal year would have been finished by now. As well, because of our severe winters, the construction season is short. It's basically from April to October.
We've been monitoring the progress of the stimulus-funded projects throughout the year and we did another survey last week. Because of the recent dry and warm weather we've been experiencing, very good progress has been made on many of the projects not yet completed. We are optimistic that most projects, if not all, will be complete by the deadline. However, there is no guarantee, as we are at the mercy of the weather.
Given this, we support an extension of the deadline for specific projects that cannot be completed due to factors such as weather, and we hope to hear of this announcement in the near future, rather than right before the deadline. SARM will continue to update the committee on the progress of the projects in rural Saskatchewan as they approach the March 2011 deadline.
Thank you again for the opportunity to present before you today.
Mr. Chair, I'm happy to respond to any questions the committee may have.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming in today on this particular topic.
What I've found on this topic is that I really haven't been able to comprehend why the government has so far been so difficult to deal with on it. To my mind, it seems clear there was a partnership entered into between municipalities and provinces and the federal government, with the federal government having a very large stake in seeing that the stimulus funding was conducted in a fashion that could work and that the projects identified were not regular business, that these projects would be in addition to municipal capital programs that were already agreed upon.
The federal government, in order to create stimulus--and knowing, as you're saying, that infrastructure programs actually work very well for stimulus and that the results would be very strong--went into this and put the burden on the municipalities to completely deliver these in a certain timeframe. Well, I haven't seen a good reason why the federal government has now decided that they can't be flexible...they're moving on this issue.
It's my concern that.... Just as the representative from the Saskatchewan association, Mr. Harvey, mentioned, there's some concern that we won't get the answer about the extension soon enough so that proper decision-making can take place. If we continue to delay this decision on the part of the federal government as to what is fair and what is proper about extending the deadline, we're going to run into extra costs for the municipalities on projects that they went into in good faith.
Do you see that as a particular issue here?
I will try to time myself, but my watch isn't working, so I'm at the mercy of the chair.
Thank you to our guests for coming here today. I'm not as intimately familiar with the situation across the country as I am with the situation in Saskatchewan. I am an RM ratepayer; my folks have farmed, and so have my relatives and so forth. I'm more than aware of the way the weather situation was this spring, because when I was trying to do some landscaping on my acreage, it just wasn't going well.
Let me just say that from my personal observations—and I could be wrong—rural municipalities in Saskatchewan probably have the toughest time to get the infrastructure done. Correct me if I'm wrong on any of what I'm about to say, but they don't have full-time professional construction staff the way a larger city would. Most of the RMs are between 1,000 and 5,000 people, correct?
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Frankly, one of the difficult things in talking about the stimulus plan is the different ways in which progress is measured. I'm not exactly sure of the source of that particular figure, but I can tell you one thing that is important to know, which is that many of the projects were never scheduled to be finished in this calendar year. They were always scheduled to be finished sometime early in the new year.
It is true that there is some substantial infrastructure work you can't do in much of the country when there is snow on the ground, but you could be looking at recreational facilities, where you're doing work inside. You could be looking at British Columbia, where you have a much longer construction season. So there always were projects that were scheduled to finish sometime in the new year, and those end dates were part of the initial proposal for doing those projects.
From our point of view, the question that is important to ask our members is whether the projects they are on the hook to finish are on track now. For the most part, the answer has been yes, in most parts of the country. There are definitely parts of the country where projects are not on track and where we need flexibility right away. Also, frankly, there are other projects that are probably barely on track and people are having to work very hard to keep them there. If things go wrong in the next few months, they'll be in trouble.
That is what we're hearing from our members.
I would like to go back to what my friend Brad opposite was saying. He said that, in his municipality, bigger projects could have been accomplished. The money was actually given to each province separately; in other words, Quebec had one amount, Saskatchewan had another and Ontario had another. I would simply like to point out that, even if you had more time, you would not have had more money to carry out more projects.
I would like to talk about the difference between Quebec and Ontario. Ontario is currently getting ready for elections. Since the deadline for the projects is December 31, most projects will be finished in November or very soon. In Quebec, elections took place in 2009. The government program was announced in the budget of March 2009. You must know what a municipal election year looks like; not much spending goes on. Until the November 2009 elections in Quebec, all projects were put on hold since, if a new government does not want to have anything to do with a project, that's the end of that project.
The Quebec municipal elections of November 2009 have contributed to the lack of materials since the projects started after the others. For all these reasons, the deadline should be pushed back six or seven months. As you know, municipal elections are different from provincial and federal elections. During elections, the federal government is able to dole out stuff whereas the municipal level has to be very careful.
In Ontario, the projects are complete. The elections are coming up. We see the little signs on the side of the road when we go home. In Ontario, it was possible to finish the projects whereas Quebec was not able to do the same because of the elections.
What do you think about that?
:
Mr. Carlton and Mr. Miller, I just want to say as a former mayor that I have appreciated the work of the FCM in representing municipalities on the national stage.
One of the things that the FCM did in the past was to secure certainty and funding for capital works for municipalities through the gas tax funding. That certainly has helped municipalities to plan. Of course, our government has accelerated that funding, and we've also extended the life of that funding, which, I think, is something that we're missing.
The stimulus funding was a one-time, very unique funding to address economic concerns, not just capital infrastructure concerns. The uniqueness of it is that our former minister, , made sure that the application forms were streamlined so they would move out quickly. He guaranteed payments within 30 days of receiving invoices from municipalities. I think our minister did a great job in speeding things up.
So I'd like to ask you a question on the gas tax funding. That comes into play, so that is something that's ongoing. When you talk about the next steps, that should be included in your next steps. How do you feel about that?
My other question is on the application forms. Did they work well? Were they clear enough? Have you had good feedback from your membership as far as the application forms are concerned?
Finally, have you heard any problems with the payments not being in a timely fashion?
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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 initiating the gas tax and extending it and making it permanent. It was extremely important.
However, one thing that is important is that, over the long term, the gas tax is not tied to economic growth; it will diminish in value over time. The second is that the gas tax alone is not sufficient, in our view, to support the long-term infrastructure needs of the country. While it is an important part, it can't be the sole part of the long-term plan.
The second question you asked was with respect to application forms. There is no doubt that this program and the administrative elements of this program have been streamlined in ways that are very significant for our members. With , and now with , we've had a discussion about doing a bit of a “lessons learned” to analyze how this model can be adapted so that it becomes the model, in some form, for future programming.
We have thanked many times for his work in streamlining that administrative process. We thank the bureaucrats as well for their work in making the application process much more effective and the payments more effective.
Where we have heard—and it's not frequent—about issues of delays in payments, we don't know whether it's a provincial or a federal issue. It's a complicated process, but certainly in comparison to the traditional cost-shared program, this is groundbreaking in some of its elements, which we look forward to having in future programs.
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What we know--and probably everyone around this table knows--about infrastructure is that it's a never-ending job. You build it, you have to maintain it, you have to repair it, and someday you have to replace it. As a country, we're only starting--and only have just started in the last few years--to realize that governments need to start planning their investments in that way. For a very long time, the federal government's involvement in infrastructure was of a much shorter term than was required. The gas tax, introduced by a previous government and made permanent by this one, is your foundation, then, for ongoing investments.
Now it's time to bring cost-shared programs into that vision, put them on a long-term basis, and bring the three orders of government together to have a much fuller discussion about the types of investments that should be the priority for those cost-shared investments. Right now, we still labour in a system in which a municipality throws a bunch of applications to the government, and then the government looks at them and chooses something. We need a much more strategic approach to the way we select the projects that governments try to undertake together. We need to set some objectives and measure our progress.
A very good example is public transit. There have been substantial investments in public transit, but what sorts of reductions are we trying to make in terms of commute times? What are we trying to accomplish in terms of traffic gridlock? There are very few national goals tied to our infrastructure investments. This is the discussion that we feel needs to be had, and it's extremely important that discussions start now.
Here's the reason: three years from now, the cost-shared federal infrastructure programs that exist under the Building Canada fund will expire. We know there's not going to be a lot of new money. If we spend the next couple of years planning how we can learn the lessons of the projects we've just built and the programs we've just used, and designing the next generation of programs, then as we come out of the deficit, we'll be ready to start making those investments.
If we don't have that conversation now, we won't start planning those new programs until 2013 or 2014 or 2015; our experience with infrastructure programs is that it's a further three or four years before any money gets spent, because you have a year of building a budget commitment, a year of doing funding negotiations with provinces, and a year of choosing projects before you're finally into building things.
For us, starting that conversation around those long-term principles now is essential, because otherwise three or four years of tight budgets could turn into a decade of no investment and no plan for our infrastructure.
Mr. Miller, I'm really glad you touched on that. I think that's one of the most important aspects of everything we've been talking about here: for the first time in Canadian history, we've seen a government that has put in place a long-term economic plan for our country.
What we saw was Advantage Canada, which was laid out in 2006. That included this whole aspect of building Canada and the fund that was put forward. It was something that was longer than a four-year fund. We were looking down the road. We're at that point again, where you're saying that we need to do that.
I've had the great privilege of being able to be at a number of announcements, both in the GTA and York Region, that have been funding announcements or ribbon cuttings for many of the infrastructure projects, be they recreational, affordable housing, or waste water projects. Also, there have been knowledge infrastructure programs. All of these are part of where we need to go.
But over and over, I've heard from people that the best thing to come out of this is the cooperation, the working in tandem of three levels of government, so that regardless of our political stripe—because although it's a Conservative government in Ottawa, we are dealing with political stripes across this country--we've managed to get the job done.
Do you think we are on the brink of a new era of cooperation amongst various levels of government? Personally, I think that's the best message for taxpayers. There's only one taxpayer, so they want to see cooperation. Do you think this can continue?
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I'd like to thank you for being here.
As a former contractor for 22 years, I come at it from a different angle. I'd like to talk briefly about your views on the management of projects. Often when these are conceived and scoped, a well-written proposal will include contingencies. It will include contingencies for financial and time constraints, for overtime, for whatever, and it will also account for unforeseen conditions. In the case of municipalities, I'm sure there's also an element of the politics and dynamics that will happen around city hall in terms of what turf is whose.
Having seen that, and having been part of that process as a private entrepreneur, I'm wondering what your views are on projects: the difference between how they've been managed from municipality to municipality and what you've seen and heard in terms of how well they've done from a project management view.
When you're looking at 20,000 projects with a 97% success rate, anyone would view that as a huge win for the country, in my view. But you're going to have all different types of situations because of both the good and the bad management of a project.
My question drives at two fronts. Number one, are you aware of projects that are under budget, ahead of schedule, or both? Number two, are you aware of projects that were totally mismanaged, or they are poorly managed and thus creating problems in getting to the completion date?
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Through our discussions with Infrastructure Canada, we know--and I think the department deserves credit for this--that they certainly did see projects coming in below budget. They were very determined to use that, to pick up those savings and invest them in additional stimulus projects, and in as quickly a manner as possible. I think that's in keeping with the spirit of the stimulus plan, which is to create as many jobs as you can in as short a period as you can.
I think it's also important to note that one of the benefits of a true stimulus plan is that prices should be down because there is less work coming from the private sector, so it's a good time for governments to get work done if they can find the money, because of course there should be overall savings. Certainly what we heard, especially in the first six months to a year after the program began, was that we were seeing very competitive bids. The sense was that people were hungry for the work.
As we've gone through this, I think that's been less true because the economy has picked up. Certainly, in some areas, private sector construction has also increased, so there has been more demand.
But yes, there are a lot of examples from Infrastructure Canada of projects coming in below budget.
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I will be quick. And then I will turn over the rest of my time to my colleague Mr. Gaudet.
Mr. Miller, in the examples I gave earlier to explain why some projects will not be completed on time in Quebec, I mentioned the shortage of pipes and contractors.
Have you heard of anything else? With the tendering process made public by the municipalities, we realized that, due to the shortage of contractors since everyone is working and there are few bids, the contract amounts, in terms of supply and demand, are somewhat exaggerated.
For example, in one of the municipalities in my riding, Saint-Pierre-de-l'Île-d'Orléans, an infrastructure project was accepted. They were going to redo the recreation building. Various officials from both the Quebec and the federal government assessed the project. The project was estimated at roughly $800,000. The lowest bid was $1,400,000.
So the amounts that were granted... We are talking about a small municipality with less than 5,000 people and without really having the means. Have you heard about something like that?
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Yes, I have already heard about something like that. We have to study this particular challenge. I believe there are a number of reasons. Perhaps there is a shortage of contractors and companies. In some cases, there is just a lot of work. But there are also very small communities or rural areas where there is only one contractor or one company and there is no one else to do the work when that person or that company is busy.
We have to use our judgment in each case because we know that, when a deadline approaches, costs always tend to go up. However, there are also situations like yours where it's just too much.
In Quebec and elsewhere, I think the government has to tell its officials that, if a municipality can finish the work before March 31 but it will cost a whole lot more, they have to use their judgment and show some flexibility.
It is difficult to find one simple rule that applies to all cases. I understand there is a need and that, at the same time, we want to get the work done as quickly as possible. So, when there are unusual cost overruns, we need to show flexibility.
If there is more time, Mr. McColeman has one more question, I understand.
Mr. Chair, I do want to clarify what Mr. Dhaliwal said. Of course it was in opposition who nagged and nagged the Liberal government to implement the gas tax funding for municipalities, and now of course he is the heritage minister. The record speaks for itself on that.
To our witnesses today, thank you very much for coming.
I understand that in essence today we are debating a hypothetical. We don't know what is going to be finished on time. We don't know what's not going to be finished on time. We are collecting information on it, of course. Infrastructure Canada has told us that. But in essence we're dealing with hypotheticals. We have more than six months to go in a program that really was a two-year stimulus fund.
Dealing specifically with your three points, I understand that what you're not asking for is a blanket extension. Just going through your three points, you're saying show flexibility for communities who have played by the rules and worked hard, work with the communities to adjust schedules on specific projects, and work with the provinces in the same regard.
I see a nod to the affirmative. So that's correct.
Now, my understanding, in speaking with Infrastructure Canada, is that this is exactly what they are doing. They're trying to be fair and reasonable with those people who have played by the rules and have tried hard. If that's not the case, I would invite you and ask you to come back to the committee and tell us that, giving specific cases with specific information, because our information here today is that they are working to be fair and reasonable, along the exact lines that you've suggested.
Finally, I do have a question on this. You say that infrastructure spending is two times more effective at creating jobs. Now, any economist, I think, or at least the ones who taught me, will tell you that this is true--in the short term, hence “stimulus” fund.
Is it fair to say--I see your head nodding again, Mr. Miller--that in the long term it's just not sustainable, that in fact tax cuts over the long term will provide more jobs because that stimulates the economy? It gets rid of the freeloaders, where people don't pay taxes and have a false economy, which happens in many, for instance, developing countries?
So it's fair to say that, short term, as the government has done, we're trying to create jobs, and it's two times more effective, but over the long term it's not sustainable. Is that fair to say? Because of course you will run out of tax money after a period of time.
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I'm sorry, but I have to stop it there. We're over time.
With that, I'm going to thank our guests for being here today and for their presentations. I will ask members to stay at their chairs for one minute, but thank you again, gentlemen, and thank you to your organizations for being here.
In committee business, very briefly, because people either haven't responded or haven't notified us yet, on Thursday we will start again with infrastructure for the first hour, and the second hour will be on Bill . For the 26th, we're waiting to hear from the infrastructure people. No one has confirmed on that date yet.
I'm suggesting that we move to Bill based on the discussions we had this morning. That will be coming out on your agenda. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact my office.
Are there any other comments?
The meeting is adjourned.