The men listed above are presidents of their respective associations. Today's quote is from a letter they sent last week to the ministers in the Canadian Government with responsibility for infrastructure and public works. Specifically, the addressees were:
The Hon. Lisa Raitt
Minister of Transport
The Hon. Diane Finley
Minister of Public Works, and
The Hon. Denis Lebel
Minister of Infrastructure, Communities and
Intergovernmental Affairs, and also
Minister of the Economic Development Agency
of Canada for the Regions of Quebec
A copy of the letter was also sent to
The Hon. Ed Fast, Minister of International Trade.
The letter opens with a description of the size of Canada's public works expenditures and then moves quickly to its argument. That argument is that the government should favor domestic over foreign suppliers, but only in a manner that is consistent with Canada's obligations in the WTO and elsewhere.
Let's begin with size of the relevant purse. Here are the opening sentences from the October 7 letter from the three business leaders:
"The federal government has clearly demonstrated that Canada's public infrastructure is a top priority. Since 2007, more than $33 billion dollars has been invested across the country by the federal government through the Building Canada Fund. The government is now embarking on an ambitious second phase of infrastructure renewal with the new Building Canada Plan which includes $53 billion over the next ten years; $47 billion in new funding for local and economic infrastructure, and $6 billion in existing funding that remains from the 2007 Building Canada Fund."
To note the obvious, the above figures are all in Canadians dollars. However, with the two currencies - the U.S. and Canadian dollars - almost at parity, it seems unnecessary and a bit pedantic to convert the figures to U.S. dollars.
More importantly, as we noted in our last entry, Canada's
Governor-General, David Johnston, mentioned these infrastructure projects in his speech from the Throne on Wednesday. Here is some of what he said:
"[I]n Economic Action Plan 2013, our Government launched the new Building Canada Plan, the largest long-term federal government commitment to infrastructure in Canadian history.
"Over the next decade, our Government will invest $70 billion dollars in federal, provincial, territorial and community infrastructure. Projects such as building subways in the Greater Toronto Area, replacing Montréal's Champlain Bridge, building a new Windsor-Detroit crossing and constructing Vancouver's Evergreen Line will create jobs across our country."
In a sense, and not surprisingly, the letter from the association presidents anticipated the Throne Speech. We've highlighted the reference to Champlain Bridge project in the latter, because the private sector leaders talked about it too:
"The government is undertaking a multibillion dollar project involving the replacement of the aging Champlain Bridge and several kilometers of urban highway infrastructure on both sides. In funding these large infrastructure projects, we urge you to consider how to maximize the opportunity for Canadian materials and services, in this case particularly in the structural steel, rebar, construction materials, and urban transportation sectors, in a manner that respects our international obligations."
