Finance committee  I agree with that.

Finance committee  Yes. Having a permanent infrastructure that allows infrastructure money to flow through it makes a lot of sense. The Province of Ontario, Infrastructure Ontario--that's a brilliant idea.

Finance committee  Could I just respond very briefly, sir?

Finance committee  Don't think I'm sneering at the tax credit you currently have. I'm not. It does create some jobs. But you don't create jobs that employ significant numbers of people. You get contractors--

Finance committee  If you look at it, the home credit itself is small. With the current limit, if you spend the maximum, you can get roughly $1,000 back. No one is going to spend $100,000 on a major home renovation because they get $1,000. Take a $100,000 renovation. The cost of that is roughly 5

Finance committee  I'll be one second.

Finance committee  Let me wrap up. We're asking for some tax fairness here, and that tax fairness comes from being treated the same as everybody else; and it's revenue positive, not revenue negative. We've given you those numbers.

Finance committee  And we're asking for it on the basis that--

Finance committee  Thank you for the opportunity to be here. Appearing with me today are Mr. Chris Smillie, from the Canadian office of the building trades; and Mr. Steve Schumann, from the operating engineers. Why are we here? Well, the unionized construction industry in this country has over 5

Finance committee  It's because we can't move people from one place in the country to another. The only tax group that can't deduct travel from its income is construction workers, and we're asking for some tax fairness there.

Human Resources committee  In principle, having a separate board is not something I'm opposed to. I'm not opposed to a separate bank account. I do believe the Government of Canada needs to have a role in being a reliable backstop without discretion. I've heard comments that the bill is for transparency an

Human Resources committee  In some of the most recent agreements, there's no accountability whatsoever.

Human Resources committee  Ms. Sgro asked a question.

Human Resources committee  Thanks. It's because of your very good-looking haircut, I think.

Human Resources committee  Ms. Sgro, your point is one of those sort of lie-awake-at-night things for me. If the intention is to make EI into a tax cutter or whatever else, it reduces the usefulness of the program. It withers the program, and when the program starts to wither, it benefits fewer and fewer p