It's tremendously important. We've been saying for years as an industry that sitting at the table and talking about what's going to be rolled out in the future is more important now than ever before. Not only are we looking at federal programs and provincial programs; we also have the private sector programs. They're all in that same loop. Again, knowing what each buyer of the construction is doing has a huge impact on preparing the workforce.
Right now we have to do anything and everything we can to acquire, train and educate our workforce, existing and new, from many different platforms. We have to pull, push and tug from every angle we possibly can to get people into the trades. Again, it's more important now than ever before to know what's coming down the pipeline. For a project now, from the time it's thought of and then engineered, that time frame is certainly extended substantially. Then you go through the tendering process. We're seeing projects now, over the last little bit, with very few bidders if any bidders, because the industry is just so busy. Not knowing what's coming down pipeline doesn't help either.
This industry here is a little different from many other sectors, because it's based on the procurement process. To go back to one of our asks as an industry, for the procurement process it's about sitting at the table so that we know what's coming down the pipeline. If there are 10 jobs listed federally in P.E.I. all of a sudden, or if there are five federal, four provincial and two private jobs, or whatever it may be, in the same time frame, it limits the ability of industry to bid those jobs. All of a sudden this contractor, who has the financial and manpower capacity, may not be able to bid those jobs coming down the road. Six months from now they may be able to.
Again, there's a really big impact from having information and sitting at the table.