Yes, and there is a role for SMEs in P3 partnerships. If you look at a typical construction contract, with a general or prime contractor and a number of subcontractors and a number of sub-subs below them, and suppliers, etc., and you look at it as a pyramid, the group most affected by the contracting method or the delivery method, P3 versus the other, is the top tier.
Those same trades, specialty trades, sub-sub contractors, and suppliers will all be engaged. It may well be that they will just be working for a different contracting party than they normally would.
My comment vis-à-vis the ability of Canadian firms to compete and for SMEs to compete was primarily at that first level, the so-called prime contractor level. They are the ones that normally, typically, would be dealing directly with the government. That's the group that is most challenged, not just by P3s but by the complexity and size of projects we see in Canada now.
There's no question that we've seen a trend over the last five to 10 years in that projects in the infrastructure area are becoming much bigger and much more complex. That is going to tax and challenge that first level, that first contracting level, regardless of what the delivery method is, because you need the capacity to take those on.
It's extremely important, and I keep coming back to this, from a planning perspective. If you own one of those companies that typically has been bidding on $2 million to $3 million school projects and you hear that a provincial government is going to start bundling those and turning them into $30 million or $40 million projects, gee, I guess you'd better do something.
It would be nice to get some advance notice of the fact that this is where your market is going and to know that it's not going to be a market that's going to disappear overnight because a funding program has come to an end.
I'm probably going on too long.