I think that the level of knowledge among certain municipal officials about this agreement is certainly very low. I was quite shocked to learn at the FCM convention in June in Halifax that City of Toronto councillors were not even aware if their procurement was about to be included in the Canadian offer, which I believe was tabled about that time.
FCM does have a committee that meets with the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I'm not privy to the discussions there. They developed a number of principles, as you're aware, that they insist be satisfied in this negotiation.
I believe, particularly if the thresholds are low, that the administrative costs on municipalities from complying with these rules could be quite significant. All you have to do is talk to your own Treasury Board officials in Ottawa about those administrative costs, which can be quite significant, even in a streamlined, centralized organization such as the Treasury Board.
More importantly, for the major contracts, for public transit, green energy, and areas like this, I think municipalities such as Toronto and others—and certainly in Quebec—have applied local development criteria that have been beneficial to their communities.
It's the 20% of municipal contracts that are over the threshold that probably account for about 80% of the value of the total contracts covered by these types of agreements. They are the contracts that can have the greatest development impacts.