Transport committee  I am Helena Borges, associate deputy minister of transport.

Transport committee  To answer your question about complying with the Canadian bridge code, yes, the project on the Canadian side will comply with the Canadian bridge code. The part of the project on the U.S. side will of course comply with the bridge code in the U.S. They are very similar, so there's not a big discrepancy.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Yes, that's correct.

Transport committee  The agreement with the private sector covered the toll infrastructure that had to be built, such as the gates and electronic system. But since the bridge is going to be toll-free, those items are going to be deleted from the contract and the government will save some money on project construction.

Transport committee  Yes, that's correct.

Transport committee  Not yet. I should mention that, during project planning, some elements may have already been included and amounts may have already been committed. We are talking dollars, as we speak. That is the focus of the negotiations.

Transport committee  In fact, it's exactly what the minister is saying. The scope of the project hasn't changed; it's when the money is actually being utilized that it's being re-profiled to a forward year. In these big projects, often just the weather gets in the way. Unfortunately, during certain periods of time in the year, you can't do the work that you had planned to do, so it has to be deferred to the following year.

Transport committee  We have a tolling policy for the federal government, for the federal assets, but each jurisdiction does its own tolling policy, as you're suggesting, because most of the roads are owned by provincial governments, not the federal government. Most of our assets tend to be bridges.

Transport committee  As we said two weeks ago, the total cost of the new bridge is already included in the fiscal framework. No additional funding is necessary to cover the costs of the project. It's already been approved. It's already been budgeted into the fiscal framework.

Transport committee  Yes, we do. We have an annual capital budget. You'll see in the supplementary estimates (C) that there's an operating vote, a capital vote, and a G and C vote. We have a capital vote every year, so with that money, as I mentioned before, we have 18 airports that we still own and operate.

Transport committee  It's paid out by cash. It would be included in a budget, for example, and then that money is made available to us for the period that we estimate the project will take.

Transport committee  That is not Transport Canada. In Montreal, it is the Jacques-Cartier and Champlain Inc. company that manages the Champlain Bridge and pays the Sûreté du Québec for police operations on the bridge when that is necessary. They have an annual contract to cover those activities.

Transport committee  There are other crown corporations, for instance the Federal Bridge Corporation Limited. That corporation owns the bridges over the St. Lawrence, in Cornwall, the Thousand Islands, and Sarnia. The police services on these bridges are paid for by that corporation. Those services may be provided by the municipal police or by a provincial organization.

Transport committee  The amount I mentioned was for the total cost of the project. The federal government has to pay the consortium, whether there are tolls or not. Since there will not be any tolls, the government will have to offset that. Be that as it may, that amount was the total cost for the project.