International Trade committee  It's a question of how the legal threshold must be satisfied under the legal system, under the courts, and comparing that to the type of international arbitration provisions that are typically part of trade agreements. It's a much different standard. For example, in labour arbitration we deal with the balance of probabilities as opposed to absolute truth, and that relaxes the standard.

International Trade committee  Without a doubt. Absolutely.

International Trade committee  I talked earlier about the union versus non-union construction sectors. The union sector internalizes the costs of workforce and labour development—training and all of that. If I'm going into the Canadian market on a project basis, I have absolutely no financial incentive or long-term benefit from investing in the development of the Canadian workforce.

International Trade committee  The industry our organization is a part of has unionized contractors, it has project owners, and it has the workers that we represent. That makes up the industry. We've had significant pressure and consistent pressure from our non-union competition to compete on the basis of cost.

International Trade committee  In our case, we are the quintessential Canadian middle class. We represent about 7,000 Manitobans.

International Trade committee  Absolutely. That is essentially why our concern comes into looking at increased competition on the construction side. We've always talked about offshoring employment. This is really onshoring employment. We have some legitimate concerns about the extent to which a global entity, a global construction organization, will invest in long-term training and development in a local market.

International Trade committee  We've had a number of examples in Canada itself. It seems inconceivable that a contractor that's going to build a major infrastructure product in Canada will bring a workforce with them. We've already had a number of instances: the Sinopec incident in British Columbia, as well as the RAV line.

International Trade committee  Okay. I will wrap up. I'll finish by touching on two important issues. Manitoba has the largest urban aboriginal population in the country. This population is underemployed and unemployed. Both Canada and Manitoba are heavily emphasizing training and apprenticeship opportunities to engage this workforce.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much. Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to make a submission before this committee. Thank you for travelling to Winnipeg to hear us. Manitoba Building Trades represents 13 skilled trade and construction unions. Our membership includes roughly just over 7,000 skilled trade and construction professionals in Manitoba.