Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing today.
No one would ever suggest that the way to have cheaper retail gasoline is to have fewer oil companies, less refining capacity, and fewer gas retailers. For those of us in the Windsor-Detroit area who understand what a private monopoly looks like with the Ambassador Bridge, who have been arguing that a competitive bridge under public oversight would cut into revenues for them, if you do a comparison, their tolls are 35% higher than the bridge tolls at the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, and 42% higher than the Peace Bridge in Niagara. So I don't think that anybody is going to argue that monopolies are cheaper.
That's a tough way to argue, especially when the carpenters' union local 18 in Hamilton agrees that there's cost inflation, although they won't say why cost inflation exists. They defend it instead. I have a quote here that they said they “have been providing Hamilton with superior craftsmanship and a construction product that is second-to-none”.
I agree it's second to none, because nobody else can challenge that. Unions have argued that this is a race to the bottom, that projects would not be safer. There are provincial health and safety provisions that are in law, are there not?