Transport committee  I'm terribly sorry about that. We did send it earlier today, but I know this committee meeting was rushed. I'll summarize the high points with you directly.

Transport committee  Forty per cent of our members send 50 or more pieces of letter mail per month, and these are small companies. In fact, very few of our members—only 1% or 2%—send no letter mail per month. The impact of the rate changes on small and medium-sized firms will be rather significant.

Transport committee  This is a larger point. That is, we feel that senior levels of governments are getting played. They are backfilling for decisions that municipalities make to pay excessive wages to government staff. Therefore, they have that option. They won't reform their own houses so long as they have access to push the problem up.

Transport committee  Thank you for that question. We've shared similar concerns over this issue for some time. Municipal revenues have been growing vastly more than is needed. I would argue that municipalities have been one of the most effective lobbying groups in Canada over the last decade. That eight-cent figure they claim—hey get eight cents of every tax dollar—does not factor into the fact that they get giant amounts of revenue shared with them by provincial, and now federal, governments.

Transport committee  Temporary staff agencies, for example; we hear from that an awful lot too. I think the thinking is that this is saving taxpayers' dollars. I'm not sure that's actually the case, so we share the view that the federal government needs to revisit some of those master agreements for federal government procurement.

Transport committee  Oh, municipalities definitely don't agree.

Transport committee  I will say it's not always about what cities are spending their money on, although we do have some questions on that from time to time. It's how they spend the money. There is the fact that municipalities have massively underfunded pensions. The federal government has taken some steps to address this, and the Ontario government is taking some steps to address underfunded pensions.

Transport committee  One of the issues you raise is something we would share as a common cause. At the federal level there have been a lot of master agreements created that really have cut out a lot of small and medium-sized firms from bidding on federal government contracts. That's not in the infrastructure game.

Transport committee  Sure. On the first comment, about the other business associations that are supporting the need for more federal dollars for infrastructure, I will say that what's happening in Manitoba is a disturbing example. The big business groups in Manitoba did support an increase in the PST to pay for infrastructure, and now, after the government in Manitoba has adopted that, they have backed away from it, recognizing that the money is actually not going to go to infrastructure, but is going to be spent in general government operations.

Transport committee  Terrific. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here this afternoon. I did want to share with you a few views of small and medium-size businesses. A deck was passed around to each of you, and I'll stick to that, if I could. I believe there are 10 minutes to speak about the federation, our work on red tape, questions about government spending, and the infrastructure gap, if any.