Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will answer only from my observations and my communications with the federal Minister. I sat with the federal Minister in his office and, yes, we did talk about the proposal. The very day that I was there, Mr. Speaker, the federal Minister told me that he had just come away from a meeting that showed the federal government were some $7 billion more towards the deficit. It is going to be tough to meet all the needs and expectations for programs across Canada one of which, Mr. Speaker, would be this proposal.
He said this to me, Mr. Speaker, and that is why I am asking that we exercise caution when we take a look at this program. We will participate. We will go to the meetings and we will discuss, from our best advantage point, what monies there are if this program ever comes about and how we would go about spending it.
I would exercise caution that there is no money there yet. The provinces have had serious reservations about how much they are going to benefit from it. Some provinces like it because they are going to get more dollars, the capacity to borrow money or else get money, from the federal government through this program to reconstruct some of their highways or to build new highways to areas that they deem to be essential. Yes, they may have gone in with some bargaining but, Mr. Speaker, I did not attend the initial meetings but our department did.
We put our best foot forward and we ended up with about a quarter of our highway system being considered under this program.