Mr. Chair, I have the same difficulty. It seems to be a common thought that everybody wants to be in a central place. Ottawa, of course, is our capital, but with the technologies we have today you can work almost anywhere in the world, not just within Canada.
My other thought is, why would the agency be in Ottawa? Of all the places in this country that have a small amount of transportation, whether it be in goods or services, it's Ottawa. Mr. Julian talks about Vancouver. We talk about Windsor. Why do we have in our minds that the agency has to be located here? Maybe that's a question the government has to decide, but somebody in their wisdom some time may see some of these agencies somewhere else in the country, whether it's Miramichi, Vancouver, Quebec City, or Windsor, so we shouldn't fix our minds here.
I brought this up originally and heard back that it costs a lot of money to fly these people to Ottawa every week. I don't know what the pay scales are, but we want to attract good people to take these positions. With that, you're going to give up an occupation back home, whether you're a lawyer or somebody involved in transportation. You'd have to make a fairly attractive offer to someone to change their life for five years and move somewhere. The part the government has in about residence and where the agency is located is certainly to the detriment of the commission.
I think some retired person would have to take this. Who would disrupt a career to spend five years at something that would take away from his overall career?