Evidence of meeting #69 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was union.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I'm interested in Canadian evidence more than United States evidence, not that it wouldn't be helpful to know what's happening in the U.S.
You reference that we contributed $28 million in stimulus funding to a project for the City of Hamilton. Did we overpay for that project? You didn't say it in your submission, but are you prepared—
President, Merit Canada
I think you did, yes.
I think if there would have been a more competitive bidding process, where 94% of the contractors and workers weren't unable to compete, naturally there would have been cost savings. I think the federal government is overpaying for lots of infrastructure.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
That's a hypothesis. You're saying, definitively, that we overpaid in that particular project.
President, Merit Canada
That's according to the City of Hamilton report. There are many other examples of projects which the federal government contributed money to that were more expensive than needed.
Conservative
President, Merit Canada
They don't give a number for that specific project, but overall they say, in the next 10 years, it will be about $1.1 billion in additional costs to the city.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I just want to be careful we're not mixing apples and oranges. Municipalities undertake a certain amount of infrastructure that's their own, where the federal government is not involved at all.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
I'm trying to sort out how much the federal government has overpaid, I guess is what I'm really driving at. We don't necessarily have a definitive number in that regard, do we?
President, Merit Canada
I wouldn't comment on overall $53.5 billion. There are a few models you could use, but I certainly think there are areas in which, given the restrictive bidding rules that have been applied to that money, it's obvious there's some overpayment happening.
Conservative
Jeff Watson Conservative Essex, ON
Would you recommend that Transport Canada look into that matter perhaps?
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, folks, for being here.
I would like to take a look at the risk associated with non-union organizations. My question to you is, when you take a look at all the business that's around which non-union folks have actually won, are there instances where they have run out of money halfway through a project, gone bankrupt, etc., or do they have the same sort of track record as some of the union organizations that are bidding for this work?
President, Merit Canada
I would argue that they have if not a greater track record....
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Do you have some data that you can provide us to support that?
President, Linden Concrete Forming
There are union contractors who go under and there are non-union contractors who go under.
What matters is the quality of the work.
I always go back to the same example. Say you have ten workers: five of them are unionized and five aren't. At the end of the day, you'll have five good workers, regardless. What's important is to check the quality of the work, given that the cost goes up every time.
When we receive a plan before working on a construction site, I throw it in my truck. It's merely a reference plan. After the first day, it won't be any good; it won't be completed. So subcontractors are asked to do the verification and to make sure it works, because it's very common for the wiring done by an electrician to conflict with the piping installed by the plumber. Professionals do those jobs, whether they are unionized or not, but without someone to check the quality of the work, you won't get the result you want.
Whether or not you belong to a union has nothing to do with the quality of the work done. But it does affect the cost. It's totally false to say that a non-unionized worker won't do as good of a job.
Conservative
Joe Daniel Conservative Don Valley East, ON
Thank you. So you're confirming that there is little to no risk for going to non-unionized....
