Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for the question.
I guess as far as examples are concerned, we as an organization have asked right across Canada for examples. What we got back from quite a few, and even in our own province.... I actually spoke to the Institution of Civil Engineers in the province of Saskatchewan, the association, two weeks ago. I met with their executive, and they said that the impact on program funding and on projects was from time delays. They said, how do you measure time delays?
As far as cost overruns are concerned, they had the same examples that we had, but said that on just about every major bridge project they were doing, it was navigable waters that was holding up their approval process, with time delays in some cases of anywhere from three months to well over a year. Their concern was the same thing: how do you measure the time delay in terms of dollars when you're dealing with program funding? You're speculating on what the increases are going to be from 2007 to 2008. You don't know what those cost increases are until you get to 2008, and you haven't been approved, and then you have to go and do it.
What has happened in many cases is that a lot of municipalities can't then afford to do the project. Now they're trying to find other means to do it, and that's where it becomes burdensome to our members right across Canada—and the territories, of course.