Transport committee  They do.

Transport committee  I think our suggestion is a fairly soft suggestion. We're not suggesting that every municipality has to contract out if they're going to get funding. Again, we're not rigidly ideological about whether public or private is better. Both bring things to the table. Both have strengths and both have weaknesses.

Transport committee  No. I think those are the three that jump out the most. On the safety issue, again, I really don't want to get into “we're safer than public transit” or “they're safer than we are”, but I think it is worth noting that the bar is higher for private operators than it is for public operators.

Transport committee  Yes?

Transport committee  Yes. Trevor's firm operates—

Transport committee  Right.

Transport committee  Absolutely, and again, we can provide the committee with information on the safety record. But again, as part of our presentation, too, one of the areas of inequity, which I want to touch on just briefly, is that right now many of the public systems operate on lower safety standards than private carriers do.

Transport committee  Actually, I would answer that by going back to the accountability issue for a moment. The way you guarantee it is through the contract. The process, to simplify it somewhat, is this. A municipality is currently operating a system that costs them a million dollars a year to run.

Transport committee  Because it has been demonstrated in many other municipalities. I think the answer to the London example you gave us was that it happened in the seventies, when the idea of contracting out was in its infancy. As with any new idea, people made mistakes at the beginning. I'm not an expert on what happened in London, but the fact is that this was a leading-edge idea at the time.

Transport committee  I want to clarify that. I don't think we asked for a subsidy. We're not asking for a subsidy. We're actually offering to return a subsidy to the government. We would operate it at a lower cost than the currently subsidized system. We're not looking for a subsidy or a break on fuel taxes.

Transport committee  No, I don't think we're saying that at all. We're saying that we're comparable to the public systems. Safety is always a relative thing. There's no such thing as a perfectly safe system. Today, as we speak, in the city of Toronto a debate is occurring about having mandatory drug testing for TTC drivers because of an incident in which a TTC driver allegedly under the influence of a narcotic caused an accident that killed a passenger.

Transport committee  We can certainly give you information that they are as safe. I frankly don't want to get into a debate about which is safer than the other--

Transport committee  No, actually she started it, by accusing us of being less safe.

Transport committee  The point is that I don't think there is anything particularly ennobling about being paid out of the public purse or particularly demonizing about being paid by a private company.

Transport committee  No. I think our intent would be to remove the tax on the private tickets, not to increase taxes on public transit.