Mr. Mulcair, I think the public has an erroneous concept of the way in which contracts are awarded for infrastructure projects in Canada.
If I may, I would like to continue in English.
First of all, there is still a very strong misperception that the cheapest proposal, the cheapest bid for a particular infrastructure project is the best. It brings the greatest value to the taxpayer. What the Johnson commission recognized and what experts across the country have recognized is that this is not the case. Given the nature of infrastructure, given the public trust that goes into any infrastructure project, professionals involved in the development, the design, and the construction of that project need to have a qualifications-based assessment process in place. That is not the way it's done right now, with the exception of the Province of Quebec, which has now recognized that qualifications need to be central to the procurement of any sort of professional.
You alluded to the notion of what I would call life-cycle costing. All too often another misperception is that the upfront cost of a particular project is it, and that once a municipality or a province pays for the design and construction of a particular project, its hands are washed and the project is in place. We of course know that's not the case. Any project, be it a building or an overpass, has life-cycle costing attached to it. In terms of an evaluation of a project, we have always argued that life-cycle costing needs to be a component of the evaluation.
Right now, I can tell you, the federal government rarely does that. At Public Works, Government Services Canada, Defence Construction Canada, when we've asked the question as to whether there is an environmental cost, a life-cycle cost involved, there isn't—