Transport committee  Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Sarah Clark, and I serve as president and chief executive officer of Fraser River Pile & Dredge, located in Vancouver, British Columbia. Our company proudly conducts dredging operations in B.C. and across the country. I would like to tha

Transport committee  Today, we've highlighted a number of issues associated with the proposed and recently enacted amendments to the Coasting Trade Act. However, we would not come to you with problems were we not also prepared to recommend solutions we believe are reasonable and fair to all. First,

Transport committee  Yes. Thank you. Our final recommendation is that this committee seek a firm commitment from government in the form of a formal mandate to Canadian NAFTA negotiators to seek reciprocity with the U.S. and Mexico for Canadian dredgers and related operators. Let me be clear. In th

Transport committee  I have a good example of this. The current vessel that we use now for dredging the Fraser River was purchased from one of the European dredging companies. It was flagged in a port of convenience. We spent millions of dollars to bring that vessel to Transport Canada's safety stand

Transport committee  I can't speak for the Welland Canal, but I can speak for the west coast, which has highly competitive ports, not only Vancouver but also Prince Rupert. Our company just finished the expansion in Prince Rupert a month ago. For Canadian ports to have access to increased funding I

Transport committee  May I just add on your question on the infrastructure bank, with projects that are over $100 million, there is an expansion of Deltaport planned by the port of Vancouver that is estimated to be in the $2.5-billion range. That would definitely be a project that the port may seek a

Transport committee  Yes, it's about $7.5 million, which is a very low hurdle.

Transport committee  Yes. That's public. Private doesn't have a hurdle, and ports are considered private.

Transport committee  I would say 80%. Our main dredging contract is with the port of Vancouver. We have an 11-year contract to maintain the shipping channel, which is worth over $7.5 million a year.

Transport committee  It's counted as one job. Then we do a series of smaller dredging projects on an annual basis. But the larger projects, such as the LNG projects or the expansion of Deltaport terminal 2, are well over that level. As I said, private doesn't have that hurdle, and we do a lot of pr

Transport committee  It all depends on how they feel they need to set up in Canada to be able to compete on the larger projects and what kind of vessels they have available. It's not just dredging vessels; they can use barges with heavy-duty cranes on them to do dredging as well.

Transport committee  I'm glad you asked that question, Member Hardie. We had a good meeting this morning with Transport Canada as they are trying to work this out. They right now have advance notification, whereby the firm would put in their application and show that they are eligible to opt out of

Transport committee  I think that's the basis of our point. We have the conditions. We meet all the standards that Canada requires. Whether it be in wages, safety, taxation, or environment—which was raised by Mr. Fournier—we are compliant. We are audited. And we believe in those standards for our cre

Transport committee  It's three weeks. We're supplying these very well-paying, middle-class jobs to people who are very skilled and who have taken the time to have that training and spent the money on that.

Transport committee  Our issue is with the government staff.