Transport committee  Personally, I think that in an ideal world what you're suggesting should apply. I think the real world is incredibly complicated, and politics in fact is really deciding among a series of greys, not black and white. I'll give you a very specific example. Obviously a portion of the municipal workforce, especially on the operational side, is unionized.

Transport committee  The building Canada fund I think allocates $200 million in 2014, if I'm not mistaken. But that only speaks to the amount of money that Ottawa would expect to send out of Ottawa in the form of a cheque. We believe that this is a vast overstatement of what will actually occur, and that very little will be spent in the first year.

Transport committee  For sure. Our submission to Mr. Lebel, as part of his consultations into a long-term infrastructure plan, called for essentially a renewal or continuation of the existing small communities component of the building Canada fund, which essentially is a dedicated envelope of funds within the larger building Canada fund.

Transport committee  You're certainly right that at the local level many municipalities consider housing—especially publicly owned housing—as a form of infrastructure because indeed it is. It's a very large capital cost, especially for Ontario municipalities. But when it comes to translating municipal needs into the federal structure, we came to realize that it wasn't a great fit, primarily because the federal government delivers funding for housing and housing-related programs through CMHC and HRSDC, and funds for all other types of publicly owned infrastructure through Infrastructure Canada.

Transport committee  No, I don't. I wouldn't characterize my analysis as critical. I think I'd counsel caution that a one-size-fits-all national approach to this might end up costing everyone more money instead of maximizing benefits. So a province-by-province approach is certainly something we would advocate, primarily because procurement regulation and oversight falls within provincial jurisdiction.

Transport committee  But I certainly expect Infrastructure Canada to be able to demonstrate that the cost of complying with any regulation, not just this one, outweighs the benefits that regulation will bring. That's all I'm suggesting.

Transport committee  I'm counselling caution so that doesn't end up being the case. But some of the approval processes for federal application-based funding programs can reach three or four years. That is a very real cost to capital. Every day that public funds sit in Ottawa, rather than being invested in economically productive infrastructure, produces an opportunity cost.

Transport committee  FCM developed seven principles to help guide the federal government's negotiations with the European Union to ensure that the subnational procurement provisions of CETA treated municipal procurement as fairly and reasonably as possible. One of those provisions, for instance, was that there should be an allowance for exempting certain strategic or regionally important sectors from that particular rule.

Transport committee  I was going to agree with Mr. Dijkema that in fact there are various provincial rules. In fact, the Agreement on Internal Trade ensures that these kinds of monopoly practices are theoretically illegal. Because we don't become involved in this detail in municipal operations, we can't say for sure, but we certainly know that in discussions around TILMA—which is called the new west partnership now, I think—between various western provinces, and CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, these kinds of practices are already rather baked in to municipal procurement.

Transport committee  The new P3 fund is worth $1.25 billion.

Transport committee  I mean for every rule of thumb there are exceptions.

Transport committee  Certainly one of the recommendations we made to the federal government and to PPP Canada was that a portion of the P3 Canada fund be set aside or dedicated to actually investing and building a municipal capacity to consider and possibly use P3s. So it's really around capacity building and part of that envelope be designed and really customized for access by rural communities who in fact do have those exceptions to the rule.

Transport committee  Well, as I said, several anecdotal examples have been raised, and I don't have the information because we're not experts in tendering. Again, we're a national organization representing municipalities from across—

Transport committee  I hesitate to describe it as reckless since I believe closed tendering is employed by other orders of government, including the federal government. I think there are lots of reasons for closed tendering. The City of Montreal is one example. Provincial regulations certainly play a pretty big role and were enacted in the late eighties.

Transport committee  Certainly the needs facing municipalities on infrastructure in particular have grown through things that are outside anyone's control, such as the need to adapt to a changing climate. That's a reality municipalities face. There are other things like new federal waste water regulations.