Transport committee  Sure. StatsCan keeps that information, and the latest report was in 2008, I think. It shows roughly 70% of construction is done by the open shop.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Sure.

Transport committee  Of course.

Transport committee  Not as much. Most of construction, apart from certain large-scale industrial projects, is done by the open shop. So, we compete among—

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  It means that depending on.... Every bid is somewhat different. There may not be a contractor who has the staff and the resources. So, for whatever reason they bid higher or lower. There's no way to make a blanket statement that every time we compete against a closed shop or anot

Transport committee  No.

Transport committee  Not that I'm aware of.

Transport committee  We would never ask the government to favour our members in terms of what you can and cannot do in terms of bidding. All we want is a level playing field. Quite frankly, there are members of ours who operate with the union wing in certain areas because their employees have chosen

Transport committee  I think on the old agreements it probably is too late for that, given that they've already been negotiated with the provinces, but I think in the new round of negotiations it should be a condition. I also think that for any federal agency, so whether you think of P3 Canada or Ca

Transport committee  I'm not here to comment on the belief of the government or the ideology of any one party. I'm here to make the case that there's a cost rationale and a fairness rationale to ensure that any public money that's spent on infrastructure is open to all qualified bidders and their wor

Transport committee  It's much, much lower. It depends on the province. I will get you the numbers on that—we're currently doing a lot of that research—but it's a lot lower in public construction. I'll give you a great example. It's currently not the case in British Columbia, but the party that loo

Transport committee  Of course. Collective bargaining agreements deal with a lot of things, but they usually don't deal with building codes and safety codes. Walter can speak to his own experience as an electrical contractor in Ontario.

Transport committee  We believe so, if it's the best quality, lowest bid. But it's important to emphasize the best quality.