Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. I am speaking on behalf of the Canadian Construction Association's 20,000 member firms who operate across Canada as general contractors, trade contractors, civil and professional manufacturers and suppliers who work, obviously, in the commercial side, institutional and industrial sector.
One of the key messages that we're bringing today is the importance of infrastructure in not only building for our future, but certainly in addressing the deficit that we know about. In 2019, we produced an infrastructure report that showed the very worrisome state in many of our assets across Canada.
Looking at the future, of course we see that the pandemic does bring us an opportunity to build back differently. One of the key areas of concern is, of course, workforce and the construction industry. We need a workforce, and we can hire and train many of those people who have been displaced in other sectors. We can do that in a way that gives them great, meaningful jobs.
Building for our future and building to eliminate the infrastructure deficit require a 25-year plan. The investing in Canada plan with its 12-year commitment is a great start, but it's not enough, and we have to all urgently focus on getting those funds flowing today. There's no point in having billions of dollars if they sit unallocated and not being used.
In terms of the Infrastructure Bank, this is a bit of context. We know Canada is a large land mass. We know that we have a small population. We have very ambitious goals to be the best country and remain the best country in the world, but we are not alone in that. Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. are facing many of the same challenges that we are. They don't have enough workforce. They don't have enough capital to make these projects go forward, and we're all facing, in Canada, some protectionism trade winds with the buy U.S. program, and, even within some provinces, we've seen some trade barriers crop up.
Our contractors are concerned that Canada won't be as attractive to this capital that we need to have that investor confidence to keep our country moving forward.
Certainly Crown corporations like EDC are very helpful, and we believe that the Canada Infrastructure Bank can also play a pivotal role; however, its mandate is a promise, but it's not yet realized. Certainly we've met with the leadership on many occasions.
P3 models can be very useful, but it's a model that does need some rethinking. We need to make sure that Canadian companies can compete without taking a disproportionate share of the risk, and we're certainly looking forward to many of the Infrastructure Bank's announcements and how they can help be a catalyst for more investment in Canada. We need these projects, again, to start now. We've seen the bank have a bit of a slow start, but we're certainly counting on them to pick up the pace and make a real contribution to the country.
Another role for them would be helping with productivity gains, de-risking innovation and making sure that that's part of the criteria when they're looking at projects.
In summary, certainly one of the goals we share with Canadians and all parliamentarians is including more Canadians in economic recovery. Infrastructure is a natural fit. Every community in Canada needs something, whether that's a community centre or a hospital. They need their curbs, and they need their roads fixed. Again, we can come up with an economic stimulus that ensures that it's shared across Canada in large and small communities and all sizes of business.
We are happy to work with the government.
Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today.