Transport committee  As part of the information request, we did ask for the allocations by the federal government. As well, we received information with respect to the matching funds identified by the provincial governments for those specific types of projects. To your point, we did not actually identify it as an issue in this report per se, but we have testified in the past on the extent to which we actually see that matching of funds, which again is a federal policy objective, spilling out across the economy.

Transport committee  Of course, within the PBO we never comment on policy. It's certainly not within our remit. That said, I will point out that it is a 12-year plan. Something that we've testified to in the past at other committees is that although there might be a challenge up front—as you quite correctly point out, any large municipality or any provincial government will have a multi-year plan in place well in advance—and there may be additional friction or pressure points at the outset when somebody comes to the table with new money, over a 12-year period of time, one would conceivably imagine that the additional money could actually be incorporated as part of the multi-year plans.

Transport committee  It's certainly not for us to make a recommendation with respect to what the committee should study. That said, from a technical perspective, it's a very interesting and important question from our forecasting perspective. Again, the key challenge for us at the outset was trying to determine, based upon the historical track record of the federal government lapsing between 15% and 40% of its infrastructure spending since 2002 every single year, how much money would they lapse in 2016 and on a go-forward basis.

Transport committee  On the reasons for the delays, again, we did not specifically request that information from departments and agencies. That said, we have had conversations with provincial governments. We can also point to the historical track record and potential challenges of the federal government in implementing infrastructure projects going all the way back to 2002.

Transport committee  I have very brief opening remarks, which hopefully the translators will do justice to, given my potentially highly questionable French. Madam Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before your committee today regarding phase 1 of the national infrastructure program.