Mr. Chair, if the legislative drafters made an error, we can certainly change the clause or the subamendment to say seven members. My understanding from the legislative drafters is that the two amendments work to create a seven-member board, but that's easily amendable for the subamendment.
The reality is we are disadvantaging very qualified people by insisting that they move to Ottawa. The very best in British Columbia, people who don't want to come here, are then not in the mix and not able to apply for these jobs. That is a fundamental reality that I certainly thought members of the Conservative Party understood--they obviously don't--that people can't uproot their families, can't uproot themselves from their communities, and travel 5,000 kilometres to come here to work.
The question of salary is not the only factor that anybody takes into consideration when they're applying for a new position. So this idea that somehow having to have a person from British Columbia means that we are diluting the quality of the people who would be involved in the transportation agency is absolutely ludicrous. We're diluting it now through this process. We're diluting it because we're saying to those folks who don't want to move, who don't want to uproot their families, who are the most qualified people.... If you read any research into the job market in Canada, that is a fundamental obstacle to people. Moving out of their region, moving to new jobs is one of the reasons why.... Some regions have difficulty attracting new workers because the issue of uprooting one's family and moving away from a community is pretty fundamental.
What we are doing now is actually disadvantaging the federal government by eliminating from the pool of potential workers in the transport area, in the transport agency, people who are very qualified but who refuse to come to live in Ottawa. I find it absolutely inappropriate that the government continues to insist that work has to be done here, everyone has to live here, and the only people qualified to work for the transport agency are people willing to uproot their families, leave their communities, and come to Ottawa. Obviously, that has an impact on the skill level of the people we ultimately attract.