Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I absolutely support what Dave has said. It's not exclusively rural Canada either. I've had some conversations with our urban counterparts in terms of the associations that also are part of FCM, and they really don't have a lot of examples to come back to. They haven't had a lot of issues. If you're in Calgary or Vancouver.... You have the Lions Gate Bridge out in your area. I have family who live on the north shore. It's a beautiful area, but I'm sure there are concerns about it, because that's a fairly heavily trafficked area. It's probably one of the most heavily trafficked navigation areas underneath that bridge, and I'm sure there are some strong considerations there.
When we get out into the smaller outlying areas, we really speak to a capacity issue for communities. There are time delays. The money is simply not there when you're going back to local taxpayers to contribute their portion. So what we're trying to do today is appeal for....
We laud the work that's been done. We've read the Transport Canada recommendations, and we support the majority of them. We think they need to go a little bit further. We certainly concur with what our provincial governments are saying. There's been a strong concern expressed through our membership, and that's why the resolution to have us go forward and open discussions with the government passed unanimously at the FCM board table.
I would appreciate some consideration for perhaps setting up a working group that would, on an intermittent or as-needed basis, enable us, as a group of municipalities, to sit down with the navigable waters department, Transport Canada, which is responsible for that area, to see how we can help in facilitating this. My particular view of this, and I know Dave feels the same way, is that when we come to these things, it's not always about money. It's about money a little bit if we get delayed. Certainly that's a problem. But it's about changing the legislation and using a little more common sense to allow us to more effectively utilize the dollars, which, at the end of the day, we all have stewardship over for our ratepayers.
I too am most grateful for the discussion. We didn't think this was going to happen. We were told a year ago, no, there wouldn't be any opening of the legislation. So we're absolutely delighted, and we appreciate the efforts made by you folks in listening to us and others who will come forward, because there's a lot of technical detail. Again, I'm not an engineer, but I think I understand the practicality of making legislation more effective for our ratepayers.
So thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to be here today. Hopefully we've answered your questions. You've given us some direction. We'll go back and do a little bit more homework and get that back to you.
Merci.