Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. We'd like to thank the committee for providing the Canadian Construction Association, the CCA, with the opportunity to appear before you today. Our association represents the non-residential sector of the construction industry, so we, in fact, bui

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  The private sector loves certainty.

Finance committee  Yes.

Finance committee  Yes, absolutely, and more employer engagement is even better.

Finance committee  The more money the company has in-house to reinvest in training and in productivity gains, the better. Our members are all small businesses. Anything you can do to enhance the small business deduction would be extremely helpful in those circumstances, in order to give an incentiv

Finance committee  Absolutely.

Finance committee  No.

Finance committee  We have 17,000.

Finance committee  Just so I understand your question, you're talking with respect to finding additional funding options for public infrastructure or...?

Finance committee  One of the things I think we have to do with respect to public-private partnerships is get the transactional cost down. Right now, because they are so expensive to deal with because of the legal agreements, complexities, etc., you need a minimum threshold of project size or value

Finance committee  Extend EDC's domestic powers: that's a big help to our firms getting involved in those large financing arrangements.

Finance committee  In answering that very loaded question, what I will say is that the stimulus program was rolled out at light speed. It was done because of the tradition we've had in Canada of the partnerships that have been made with lower levels of government. We have—if I can use the pun—the i

Finance committee  I think it's important to make the distinction that it was a stimulus program, not an infrastructure program. As a stimulus program, it worked very effectively. What we want to see in terms of a successor program to the Building Canada plan, which is an infrastructure program,

Finance committee  I think it goes without saying that everyone understands how related the state of our highways and the state of our trade routes, etc., are to our economy and to prosperity for our country, and indeed, for our standard of living, and even our health, such as when it comes to our