Mr. Chair, I have made submissions to the various orders of government.
I went first to the provincial government. The first minister of finance I spoke to about the situation was Raymond Bachand. That gives you an idea of the time frame. Next, I approached the federal level on several occasions, to raise awareness about the competition aspect and the extremely unfair competition. Our industry is used to competition and is very adapted to it, but it is not adapted to the competition we are seeing today.
Competition today is not remotely comparable to a commercial competition system.
Competing companies bid on the same contracts as us, but they do not have the same criteria for compensation or training for their drivers. We are working in circumstances where the pay difference can be as high as 25% or 30%. The big schemes that make up these companies don't give their employees vacation pay, don't pay for health insurance—and here, I am talking about Quebec, but my example applies to every province—and don't pay into the Quebec Pension Plan, pay nothing to the Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité au travail, pay for group insurance, and do not contribute to a group pension plan. That being said, I am not claiming that the entire industry is doing this, but this is still a space where the pay differential is 25% to 30%.