Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today.
My questions today are for Mr. Schumann with the International Union of Operating Engineers.
I was happy to hear in your opening remarks about the strong support for the spring economic update. You mentioned that it is “the most significant...investment in skilled trades...in a generation.” It's good to hear that feedback. I think it's an important time to invest in the skilled trades. Arguably, for a while, the skilled trades were not getting the support they needed. Now, with all of these large-scale projects, we need the workforce to build them, particularly by training up Canadians to do that, so I'm very happy to hear that.
I know the members in your union have helped build some of Canada's most significant nation-building projects in B.C., such as LNG Canada, Coastal GasLink and the Site C dam, among many other projects. The spring economic update had measures aimed at attracting investments and accelerating major projects. From the perspective of the union workers actually building these projects, how important is it to restore investor confidence to ensure that more projects move forward? What impact does that have on creating good-paying union jobs across Canada?