Finance committee  Sure. I'll give you a comparison of where we are with respect to the U.S. Under the current system in the United States, which is more of a direct depreciation, a typical piece of equipment is written off within six years. Under the current system in Canada it takes 11 years, and

Finance committee  It's absolutely key in our industry. We need the workers to go where the work is. We'd love to be able to move a northern mining project in British Columbia to downtown Vancouver but it just doesn't work that way, so we need a mobile workforce.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wish to first of all thank the committee members for providing the Canadian Construction Association with the opportunity to appear before you in connection with your annual pre-budget consultations. The Canadian Construction Association, CCA, represents

Transport committee  I would agree it would be Parliament because it's taxpayers' dollars. In particular, if funds are being diverted away from the actual asset itself for some other purpose, I think it's doubly important that taxpayers hear that it was successful and did have a return on investment.

Transport committee  Well, first of all, I suppose we're now not talking about C-227, because you mentioned the building Canada plan. It doesn't apply to that. But if I were to speculate, if it were to apply to the building Canada plan, the decision as to which delivery method to use would be up to t

Transport committee  Any time a government says that you have to pre-qualify to bid a project, very often that will be part of the submission to meet the pre-qualification. They'll include that. They'll include for example how many of their people are certified in green technologies, among other thin

Transport committee  It would, if it's defined up front. In the platform that you're giving them, if their response to that platform in any way, shape, or form is going to be considered in the selection of the successful bidder, then Treasury Board requirements, indeed contract law in Canada, require

Transport committee  To be honest, it would be better to ask a procurement expert, probably somebody from PSPC who would have to be doing this. I know that one of the things they are consistently concerned about is being able to compare apples to apples and not apples to oranges in those circumstance

Transport committee  Maybe I can answer it this way. Depending on what project delivery method PSPC has decided is best suited to the procurement of the asset or infrastructure they are looking at, that would then give you the opportunity to see to what extent the community benefit aspect of that cou

Transport committee  Okay. The Minister may, before awarding a contract for the construction, maintenance or repair of public works, federal real property or federal immovables, require bidders on the proposal to provide information on the community benefits that the project will provide. It says

Transport committee  My response is going to be not necessarily specific to what's going on in Ontario, but what's going on across the country, where different municipalities and governments generally are looking at using procurement to advance other public policy objectives, other than getting criti

Transport committee  I'm still trying to mull over “future investments” and how that would work.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  If it's in the tender documents and all bidders have an opportunity to make their case, I couldn't agree more: that's the way to go, absolutely. I should qualify what I said earlier. On a strict reading of the bill, the way it's written right now, it implies that this discussio

Transport committee  First of all, it goes to the point I made earlier that it's got to be defined up front so that all bidders are aware of what is expected and how they're going to be judged with respect to their tenders. In particular, if the award of the contract is also going to be based on the