Transport committee  I'm assuming that the building trades would.

Transport committee  This is part of what the labour movement in the States, in particular, often says is the potential benefit of a project labour agreement. They say, well, since our rates are the normal rates anyway, or whatever else, we'll give you a deal on our rates. Actually, the labourers' union tried to get a project labour agreement with Windsor county back a few years for all the road work for the new bridge.

Transport committee  We've looked at that in my past experience on the board of Merit, and talking to people from Merit Ontario and Merit Canada. We've looked at that option and have been told that it's very iffy, going to the Competition Bureau. We've also looked at the charter challenge issue. Essentially, on both counts, we're trying to get a political solution, rather than have somebody tell us that it's before the courts and to forget about it for now.

Transport committee  The Red River floodway.

Transport committee  Starting in the nineties, unionized general contractors wanted to look for a way that they could compete in an open market against open-shop contractors. So what they did—I believe it was in 1989—was write into their collective agreements a construction management clause. It sets out the provisions whereby if they do not form a contractual relationship with a subcontractor, they do not have to abide by the restrictions of that subcontract.

Transport committee  What I'm saying is that this is what they do, but the government does not have to honour them. All they have to do is tell them, “We want construction management here, and we want open competition on all your jobs. We are not bound by the agreements, and you can't force them on us.”

Transport committee  I can tell you a lot of bad stories.

Transport committee  Basically, the government made a contract, essentially a collective agreement, with the building trades of the area whereby it set the terms and conditions for all employment—wage rates, pension benefits, and all that. But in addition, only members of the building trades could work on the project, even though in Manitoba union density is even lower than here.

Transport committee  I don't have it now, but I could get you something, certainly.

Transport committee  I would add the Union Station renovation project: tripartite funding, $560 million, I believe, and wall-to-wall union. The Spadina subway extension: $2.5 billion, again tripartite funding, and wall-to-wall union. These are significant dollars. You have an infrastructure deficit at the Toronto community housing authority of $750 million, and they're going downhill, because the prices they're getting in that sector from unionized contractors are just....

Transport committee  The only jurisdiction in Canada that has anything close to this would be Manitoba right now, where you have project labour agreements, which are government agreements in a certain sector, like the Red River flood project. That was under a project labour agreement, where they restricted the workers on it to be union only.

Transport committee  Unlike in the organized sector, we don't spend a lot of time tooting our horn and telling everybody we're the best, the most efficient, better trained, and this, that, and the other thing, but I would certainly say we are. It goes back to my auto industry analysis. Forty years ago the CAW and the Big Three had a monopoly over car production in North America.

Transport committee  —hundreds of municipalities, I know. But the LUMCO group, which was mentioned in Mr. Harris' deputation, is basically urban centres of over 100,000 people, and that was 30.

Transport committee  I've heard of—

Transport committee  I would point out that when the City of Hamilton was certified, the staff did a detailed analysis of contractors who were already pre-qualified to bid on carpenter-related work. They found that out of the more than 200 contractors only 17 were qualified now that they had to have a carpenters' agreement.