Mr. Speaker, I rose in the House just a few weeks ago, discussing the situation of a small town in Manitoba. St-Pierre-Jolys has an opportunity to add 300 people, 150 homes, to its community. The trouble is that the waterworks of the town has already passed capacity. It currently has capacity for 800 people but actually has 1,000 people in the community.
It is looking to grow. This is critically important. It is a francophone town in southeastern Manitoba. It needs critical mass to sustain services in French. If it is not allowed to grow and sustain its population base and add jobs and opportunities that providing 150 new homes would create in that community, much is at stake.
Therefore, the town is looking to its federal member and the federal government for infrastructure money, but instead of getting a response what they get are a couple of answers. First, it is a big announcement, but none of the money is available for 10 years. Second, the water services it wants to provide need to be changed and upgraded in order to meet new federal standards. The problem with that is that there is no money in this budget earmarked for water services in small communities, or even large communities, despite the fact that the federal government has actually changed the specifications for cities right across the country.
We have small towns with the capacity to grow. We have small towns that have urgent needs around water infrastructure. We have an infrastructure fund that is back-end loaded and much of the money will not even arrive until after the next election, forget this election, yet it keeps telling people in these small communities not to worry, that there is money on the table. There was not even a desk to apply to up until late last fall. A year ago, when the town wanted to apply for infrastructure funding, it could not apply. There had not been a provincial and a federal agreement put in place. There is no money earmarked for this now. There will be no dollars set aside for it. Federal standards have changed and this community, which is trying to grow, which has the capacity to grow, is being frustrated because it has no federal partner willing to step up.
My question is very simple. Why has this budget, which we have just voted on, refused to put dollars on the table for small municipalities and towns to upgrade their water facilities so they can grow and provide clean and safe drinking water?