This is a huge issue, and you heard the stats that I reported from the Ontario Construction Secretariat just for Ontario alone: $1 billion to $3 billion a year.
What happens is this: I'm a contractor. I have to hire 10 people to perform my work. Rather than bringing them onto my payroll, I describe them as independent operators. They're independent contractors. Let's say that, being an independent contractor, they make $2,000 a week. I give them $2,000. It's up to them to pay EI. It's up to them to pay CPP. It's up to them to pay taxes on that. How many of those workers actually do that? That creates the problem. There's a lot of missed revenue there for governments.
The other thing is that these workers are often exploited. Then in terms of the competitiveness factor, I'm that contractor who has these workers styled as independent contractors. I have 10 employees. I'm going to bid on a project against a union contractor, for example, who has 10 employees but is paying them all the requisite dollars and wages and making the necessary remittances. The contractor who is misclassifying these workers as independent contractors has a competitive advantage against the legitimate contractor. However, I'm still not breaking the law by styling the workers as independent contractors. This is a real problem for the construction industry.
You may recall years ago—I think it was 10 years ago—that there was a terrible swing-stage accident in Etobicoke in Toronto, where three workers fell to their deaths. One survived but tragically was impaired for life afterwards. Each one of those workers was an independent contractor. This is a real challenge for our industry.