Mr. Speaker, I have one more little comment that has to do with the actual competition.
What would happen if the mint were to produce all its own coinage out of the Winnipeg plant? We hear that it took only 20% of its supply from Westaim and 85% from elsewhere. That is because of the bidding process, NAFTA and other suppliers. There have been a few occasions where I understand the timeline given was insufficient for Westaim to deliver on a timeline that was not usual. It had a real fast order and Westaim said it needed a little longer to fulfil it so it went elsewhere. That is fair but that has happened very seldom.
The problem is that by building this plant in Winnipeg, Westaim thinks it can supply all its needs with this plant that has only one-third the capacity of the present Westaim plant in Fort Saskatchewan. The arithmetic just does not add up. The fact is it is competing.
The other thing that really bothers me is that the minister said we would not be competing. The documents from the mint itself said it expects to make $3 million in revenue not from Canadian sales but from sales to foreign countries buying these blanks.
The concept of not competing is very inconsistently communicated. I think it is going to happen and it is wrong.
The other thing we need to recognize is that many foreign countries actually like to deal with governments and it gives them a tremendously unfair advantage.