Since 2006, I have been active as your Member of Parliament to deliver stable, predictable, permanent infrastructure funding to our local municipalities. Only your Federal Conservative Government provides an annual infrastructure funding transfer to municipalities. Last year, federal gas tax transfers to local municipalities in Renfrew-Nipissing-Pembroke totalled almost $6 million. All this was done without raising taxes or adding to the deficit.
Unique in Canada, our Conservative government delivers the federal gas tax fund, in partnership with the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, directly to all Renfrew County municipalities. Unlike application-based infrastructure programs being proposed by the opposition, funding is fairly distributed by our Conservative government on a per capita basis, year after year, with a legislated, permanent, predictable formula.
That means municipalities can set local priorities without having to go beg Toronto and waste money retaining expensive consultants and lobbyists on a provincial process that has been likened to buying a lottery ticket with the same odds of receiving funding. In another example of fairness at the federal level, the population-based funding from the federal gas tax is transferred with no strings attached.
Unlike our Conservative government that believes one should pay as you go and balance budgets, the Liberals aim to raid Canadian pension plans as a convenient source of money to finance the party’s unaffordable infrastructure program for things like industrial wind turbines in Ontario that nobody wants. Subsidies to Liberal party insiders has led to a $50 billion debt to generate electricity we cannot use, to pay the US to take it off our grid.
Like our local, well-run municipalities that operate on a pay-as-you-can-afford basis, the Federal Government shares that attitude of living within one’s means. While our government continues to make record investments in infrastructure, we will balance the budget this year, continue to reduce taxes for Canadian families, and provide for a secure retirement.
As your Federal Member of Parliament, I am pleased to represent you on a variety of issues. Whether that issue is promoting agriculture, international trade, Canadian Unity, AECL, CNL, the military or jobs in the working forest, I am here to serve you! As always, if you have any concerns of a federal nature, or just want to share your views with me, please do not hesitate to contact my office. Office contact Information: Constituency Office of Cheryl Gallant, MP, 84 Isabella St., Pembroke On. K8A 5S5 or call 732-4404. There is no postage required when you write your Federal Member of Parliament.
