Transport committee  Well, our position would be that the public entity has the right to compete in that open competition. The problem has been, though, that there isn't any competition. There is no tender. They just decide they're going to do that work. We have a situation now where some public enti

Transport committee  Correct.

Transport committee  Yes. There are two questions. One is whether non-union construction workers can live up to the same standards and comply with the same labour conditions, etc. as unionized workers. Absolutely. Law-abiding contractors do so. No matter what their union affiliation is, law-abiding

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  The Canadian experience class was created just for that purpose.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  No, it's bureaucracy under the guise of environmental protection. It's not environmental assessment; it's simply jurisdictional fiefdom building and uncertain law. What we want is a situation in which a truly vigorous environmental assessment is done once and with certainty, so

Transport committee  No. Again, if you have an environmental plan and there are environmental conditions you have to meet, that's just like meeting any condition on a contract. That's what you are legally obligated to meet.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  Yes.

Transport committee  I can't speak for the European countries. I can say, however, that from our perspective, our board of director's position on this is that reciprocity is the key. To the extent that those markets are open to Canadian firms, then the markets in Canada should be open to them. From t

Transport committee  Correct, to have a streamlined uniform approach.

Transport committee  I'm going to skip to another irritant we have—

Transport committee  Okay. What can the federal government do? One thing they can do is ensure competition, period, and not fund projects that are going to be constructed by owned forces, by municipal forces themselves.

Transport committee  Ask Nova Scotia. The Province of Nova Scotia right now has its own asphalt plant, its own chip seal plant, and by its own admission, it's still 40% higher than what the private sector was offering them.