Finance committee  Thank you. Through the chair, I note the premiers of all political stripes met last week. They are universally upset at new programs being imposed on them that are being paid for out of transfers that already exist to provinces. I guess the confidence of CUPE members is a bit sh

Finance committee  Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. We are very privileged in CUPE to represent 630,000 Canadians who work all over Canada in big and small cities and communities delivering front-line services like municipal health and education, to name a c

Transport committee  I was, yes. On the Friday before the Monday, when he surprisingly resigned, or stated his intention to resign, the second cadre of redacted information was brought forward. It was 20,000 pages.

Transport committee  That's who I was talking about.

Transport committee  Very quickly, through the chair, the member mentions the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. I've read the recommendations and I can tell you that if Professor Loxley was here he would agree with many of the recommendations from that committee. They said: “

Transport committee  I'll just say very quickly that Mr. Toet's question about bundling or unbundling was a good one. Here's an Alberta example, and it's nothing to do with the federal government. The Alberta government said it wanted to build a package of 10 schools under a P3. A gentleman came up

Transport committee  I would commend Dr. Loxley's work to you. He describes forms of P3s, he gives you some examples of sizes, and he canvasses Mr. Holder's question about the amount of infrastructure deficit we have in Canada. As well, in five pages of this 35-page report he mentions six pointed que

Transport committee  Yes, it's on our web page in response to budget 2013 that this was one good move made by the federal government. The gas tax was actually initially introduced by Mr. Martin.

Transport committee  No, because that hasn't been put into the public realm. I think the mayors and councillors across Canada appreciate the unencumbered money, and Mr. Stoney spoke about that. We do need to trust that local government will make the right decisions. It's not prescribed. It hasn't

Transport committee  Risk invariably ends up in the public realm. The City of Hamilton got out of private operation of their waste water treatment system. In 10 years the consortium changed ownership three times, then they walked away. Hamilton city council can't walk away from providing water treatm

Transport committee  Just the municipal and transportation debt is, according to the FCM, $178 billion.

Transport committee  After reading the Regina Leader-Post, the new mayor of Regina spoke at our convention this spring. I went up and introduced myself and asked him if he was quoted correctly in the Regina Leader-Post, that he has philosophical issues but that they need the 25%, the $57 million. He

Transport committee  They can mean that, and I hope they don't. Dr. Loxley quotes Larry Blain, the former head of Partnerships BC. They only get funding for Partnerships BC—and they helped to consider the Canada Line—if they get P3s. That's how they get their funding, so it's not an arm's-length, s

Transport committee  No. That might be what Dr. Loxley's position is, but he canvassed the City of Moncton. They decided on a P3 for waste water treatment. Unsolicited, a private sector company said they could do a better deal for the city's whole water system, and the council said no. These are th

Transport committee  No. I wouldn't be principally against that. I don't know anything about it. We canvassed one bridge story from Winnipeg. It was much smaller. It was a beautifully built bridge. It was not an issue of CUPE jobs or anything. But when we finally got our hands on the information fo