Thank you for the question. This is related to the answer I gave earlier to our Liberal Party colleague.
When Public Works and Government Services Canada had to award the $15-million contract, it chose efficiency by selecting the ARUP firm in order to accelerate the process. That firm was already very familiar with the file of the new bridge. When we announced, on October 2, the building of the Nuns' Island causeway, we also published an engineering report. We regularly request engineering reports to get an idea of how things are going.
As for the state of the bridge, the Buckland & Taylor report asked for even more commitments, both for preserving the current bridge and for reviewing the time frames for the new bridge. Over the next few weeks, we will publish a new schedule. We are working very hard to be ready as soon as possible and, of course, to preserve the current bridge. However, public safety is of the utmost importance for our government and for the Jacques Cartier and Champlain Bridges Incorporated corporation.
That 2 mm crack was found at 3 a.m. during one of the nightly inspections, before the morning traffic on the bridge. The fact that the work is being done is reassuring for people. Clearly, a crack is not reassuring, but we are doing what needs to be done. That shows how serious we are about maintaining the Champlain Bridge. We have 100 to 200 people working on the current bridge daily. We are making sure that the bridge is safe when it is open, of course, and we will build the new bridge with great diligence, Mr. Chair.