I'm smiling only because you perhaps unwittingly have reinforced something we have been saying for months and months and months, and it is reassuring for us. It's frustrating, but it's reassuring for us to hear from people who are actively involved in what should be the results of job creation from a stimulus effort and who are having exactly the same concerns.
I must say that your references to recovery.gov, in the United States, say the same thing. We've been saying this for months. The example from the United States is extraordinary, and if I can just quote you: “...this recovery.gov experience would be a valuable example of how transparency could be an effective tool” and this would be a good example for the Canadian government to use. I hope my colleagues on the government side of this committee room are listening.
I'm turning to what is page 8 of your presentation. It's a little bit along the same lines, but you talk very helpfully about the time of projects. You are speaking here about the lag time translating engineering volumes into actual shovels in the ground being at least six to ten months for non-complex projects, sometimes more depending on the job. That is another concern we have raised in the context of the 2011 deadline for projects—and it is a concern we've also heard from municipalities. We've lost a construction season. With those two-thirds projects that have not yet been started, there is a concern that the municipality—as they have been told so far—is going to be on the hook for the entire cost if a project is not completed by 2011, given exactly this problem of lag times and the time for any kind of project to be completed. Can you comment also on that? If you put yourself in the position of a municipality that has a project not yet started, knowing that you will be on the full hook for the cost if it's not finished by 2011, would you be inclined to question now whether you should even start this project come next spring?
I know it's unfair to put you in their position, but you know something of the construction business, of course, so....