Finance committee  That's a really important question. We do have, for example, current gas tax programs, building Canada programs, that are done on a criterion such as population, or other criterion, such as ridership for transit. I don't think that the infrastructure agency we're talking about

Finance committee  I want to provide one example, because it's really important. I've been in touch with various people in the U.S. The investors down there, if they're doing a transit project.... Because of the sharing economy—car-sharing, where people take passengers to stations, let's say—nobod

Finance committee  An Armani gap.

Finance committee  I would add that the operating component isn't critical. The maintenance component is. Going back to the U.K. in the 1980s when the train systems became privatized, there were agreements with the unions there that those folks would keep their jobs. I think up to a point, maintai

Finance committee  I agree. Yes, that's a good one. It's actually a great example.

Finance committee  I was going to respond to that if there's a minute.

Finance committee  I'm familiar with that project. It was a foreign firm, a Spanish firm, and Minister Murray was the infrastructure and transportation minister then. When he heard about it, he was very strong in terms of getting those girders replaced. Obviously, these things go through the courts

Finance committee  I did provide some comments with respect to Metrolinx. I think that separation of church and state is really important for this organization. It really bothers me that there will be an opportunity, for example, for the entire board to be pulled, or something like that. That hap

Finance committee  Yes, I've read the recent media about the changing circumstances. I think the view we have is that true arm's length is much better than veto power, or recall, or second-guessing about whether an evaluation was done correctly. That's our view. You can do that with other kinds of

Finance committee  Sure.

Finance committee  Thank you, Chair Easter, vice-chairs, and members of this committee. My name is Andy Manahan. I am the executive director of the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario, and I have been in that position for about 11 years. Obviously, we are a provincial associa

Finance committee  On the technology, I'm not an expert, but I did talk to this group I mentioned to you earlier, and they have done some testing in urban canyon environments, and sometimes GPS bounces off the building walls. So there are some difficulties, but from my understanding they're getting

Finance committee  We didn't get specifically into that, but I mentioned earlier that we talked about bundling of bridges, and what we looked at was, in the U.S., the state of Missouri. They had put out an RFP to rehabilitate over 800 of their bridges. That didn't go so well because I think there w

Finance committee  There is a third way that I refer to in terms of the transportation modelling, and that's user pay. So that is indirectly another tax.

Finance committee  Let me give you an example. This glass of water here probably costs about 1.5¢, and that's paid through water rates. If you increase water rates by 10% as they're doing--actually, it's 9%--every year in Toronto, people really don't blink about that. So there are other things--