Transport committee  That's correct. That's our position.

Transport committee  If union contracting is not as you've just described, then they have nothing to fear from free and open competition because they may in fact be at a lower cost.

Transport committee  The other point that I'd like to make is that it not only shuts out open-shop, or as some refer to it, union-free employees, but also other unions. The Christian Labour Association of Canada, CLAC, is a unionized shop, and they wouldn't be allowed to bid either. So it's not simpl

Transport committee  Exactly. That's what I said in my opening remarks.

Transport committee  Exactly.

Transport committee  No, we would encourage our member companies to hire locally first, regionally second, nationally third, and then if all those pools are exhausted, to look for temporary foreign workers.

Transport committee  As I said, it's member and bid specific. It's impossible to have a generalization on it.

Transport committee  I didn't say that. I said that some of our companies use the temporary foreign worker program as it's available to them.

Transport committee  No. Temporary foreign workers are extremely expensive. The average number of employees in our member companies is fewer than 10. They are the construction contractors in the local community, and they understand how important it is to hire locally. If you want to talk about be

Transport committee  Okay, good.

Transport committee  It's 3,500.

Transport committee  I know that some companies do. We don't keep a database on our members and how often they access the program.

Transport committee  Mr. Poilievre, it depends on the contract, as not every contractor is qualified to bid on every contract. There's an example in the City of Hamilton report, which I'll table with the committee, where 94% of the contractors were not able to bid. Of 260 contractors, only 17 had t

Transport committee  It was 270.

Transport committee  Exactly.