everyone for joining us. Today we are very pleased to be joined, AED's Canadian members by two champions of the construction sector in Canada and certainly folks who are helping to plan the government's direction on ensuring that infrastructure and construction are well looked after in Canada's economic recovery. So I would like to take a moment to introduce you to Parliamentary Secretary Stephen MacKinnon, who is the Member of Parliament for Gatineau and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada and Parliamentary Secretary Andy Fillmore, Member of Parliament for Halifax and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities. So I know you folks want to head right into Q&A and get some questions from some of our participants, but what I wanted to do first was to start off kind of with a framing question, and either of you who would like to could start us off by answering it. But overall, so far, what has been the government's approach and what has been the key initiative in your opinion that's helping small businesses ensure that they're able to, you know, make the most of this time and respond to the pandemic emergency effectively? Andy, do you want to go or do you want me to take that? Sure, I'll tell you what, why don't, Stephen, if you do you want to talk about the assistance programs, and then maybe I'll jump into the ICIP side of it. Sure, very good. Well, first of all, good afternoon, everyone. And it's great to see all of you. I don't really see anyone on here on the screen other than Rob, but and my colleague Andy, of course, and we don't get to see each other much anymore. I'm, of course, very familiar with Rob and he serves you well here in Canada in terms of involvement in the construction industry. And we have an awful lot of great dialogues open currently with the construction industry. So I'm very familiar with many of the challenges faced. But since the question was more generically and broadly about small businesses, I will, I guess, would just really rely on what we know has been taken up aggressively by small and medium sized businesses in terms of emergency programming. And that's very clearly the $40,000 loan facility that was put in place has been has proven to be incredibly popular among and Andy will remind me of the acronyms. I forget the acronyms, especially because I represent a francophone writing and my acronyms in my head are all in French. But Andy, do you know what it is? NIMA. Yeah. So it's the $40,000 loan facility that has proven to be, of course, extremely popular and I think will prove to be extremely generous as we forgive $10,000 of that if it's repaid before the end of 2022. And then, of course, the wage subsidy program for businesses who've suffered year over year losses of 70% or less in some cases. The wage subsidy has, I know, been of incredible assistance for businesses as they get back on their feet, bring people back to work more broadly. And I know some small and medium sized business people have expressed concern to me about the CERB. There's no question it is helping a lot of Canadians. There's no doubt about that. Some people have broadly expressed the concern that it is perhaps preventing people or disincentivizing people from returning to work. I'm sensitive to that complaint. We're not seeing that that broadly yet. Undoubtedly, there are some of that, but I think a combination of all of those measures have made sure that our SMEs have knock on wood with some exceptions and sectors come through this better than we initially hoped. Okay, so thanks for that, Steve. And I'll add what has come to the table from the Department of Infrastructure and Communities. Really, two categories. The first is built on the existing Investing in Canada infrastructure plan, which you'll recall is this massive 10 or 12 year, tens and tens and tens and tens of billions of dollars worth of investment in Canadian communities. Now, those projects, those infrastructure projects typically are big projects, and they have a long planning cycle and approval cycle and a few years can go by before we actually see them in the ground. And that's just the nature of a big project. So the response from government has been something called to create a fifth stream. You'll recall there are four streams, and I can go through those if anyone wants to be reminded of them. But we're adding a fifth, which is going to be called the COVID-19 Resilience Stream. Now, this is still working its way through Treasury Board for approval. So I can't show all the cards, but I have some words that I can say about it. And in broad terms, it's a fifth stream that will allow provinces to decant or move up to 10% of the balance that remains for them under the other four streams. So I'll use a local example, the one I'm familiar with. There are about $850 million in Nova Scotia and the four streams that Nova Scotia has access to through the Integrated Bilateral Agreement. The province could move about 10% of that, so about $85 million into this COVID-19 stream. And the idea is that that stream would be open to a very wide variety of projects, very, very flexible, but they should be short term projects. They should be money that we can get out the door right away, sort of getting away from that long planning and approvals arc, and really keep people working in the short term. While all that other tens of billions of dollars in the original four streams is still bearing down on us, we want to fill that gap up front to keep people moving along and then segue into that work that comes. So that's one. The other one was the accelerated gas tax fund payment, the front ending of the gas tax as we call it. So essentially, that gave municipalities a whole year's worth of their gas tax allotment, rather than what is typically done is it's broken up into bite sized pieces over a number of months. So that's giving municipalities as well a chance to dig into infrastructure at their own pace, whatever their immediate needs are. And some of that we'll see, as we're seeing is, is responding to COVID with modifications to public transit to be safe or more bike lanes or wider sidewalks and that kind of thing. What those are the two ones that we know about the third that really spans all of government is what we don't know yet. The Prime Minister is very focused on getting the money that's already allocated, but but not, but not spent out the door before he's really ready to talk about stimulus, which is another word of saying new money. So will there be new money for stimulus at some point? None of us know. My guess is probably there will be some, but really, we're looking at getting the money that we already have spent before we have to go to that. Thank you very much. I have one comment and it comes from Craig Drury. Craig is vice chair of AD and incoming chairman and Craig. Craig is the first Canadian chairman of the organization internationally. And all right, if you're if you're there, I'm going to turn it on so that you can speak. And if you're not there, I'll read your question out of the chat. Right, can you can you hear me? All right, well, I will. I will. Oh, he's here. All right, guys. You there? Yeah. Yeah, I've got two comments. So one is, I just wanted to say, at least from our perspective at Vermeer Canada, we have about 100 people employed across the country. And that wage subsidy was very beneficial for us to do what I think you exactly intended it to do, which was to keep people working. It probably meant in our small little company, 10 to 15 people that would have otherwise been laid off. So I would say job well done there. It accomplished hit the right on the target there. My question is, in the infrastructure portfolios, where does energy infrastructure fall into that? IE pipelines as the ideally. But I'm just wondering where the energy sort of Alberta struggles fall into your infrastructure files. Are you from Alberta, Greg? Craig? No, I'm from Barrie, Ontario. But Alberta, we look, Alberta is part of our company. And I don't need to tell you it sucks out there. Well, first things first, congratulations on representing Canada on the world stage. That's a very big pride of place. And so very pleased for you, for your organization and for us all. Thank you. I think it's going to be easy when I can't get over a border, though. You might be doing this Zoom stuff a lot. Andy will want to add to this. To state the most obvious, we are the proud owner of a pipeline. The Trans Mountain project is ours. It is being completed and will continue to be completed. And that is equally true of a number of other pipeline projects. I know the Canadian portion of Keystone is complete and some of the line reversals elsewhere in the country are complete. But the little known fact in Canada has been that there has been a lot of pipeline construction by any measure, by any historical measure. There's been a ton of pipeline construction in Canada. Of course, the industry would like to see more. I know that until this recent collapse in oil prices, there were some worries about long-term capacity, but I don't think there are any once Trans Mountain comes on and it's short to medium term capacity constraints. And that obviously Trans Mountain opens us up to the West Coast and hence other markets, other Pacific markets. There is of course also the LNG project in Kitimat, which is going to require, famously, we had a major January of blockades across the country, but major gas pipeline construction in support of that project. So those are the very clearly the big ones. We will not be beyond owning our share of Trans Mountain, be funding directly funding. We are simply the regulators for any additional infrastructure that may be proposed. There is regular talk about a Canadian energy grid, and I know I don't think I'd be sharing too many secrets to say that that is a, from time to time, subject of discussion among governments. To date, there has been no agreement on a national energy grid strategy. I know that it's something that the government of Canada continues to be interested in, but I don't think that today or even soon there'll be a lot of fleshing out on that topic. So that's what I would say about an energy infrastructure. Yeah, I would add that Newfoundland is also in a very difficult spot with their energy economy right now, hurting very badly. So I think it's good that Minister O'Regan, Seamus O'Regan, being a Newfoundlander, lives and understands very intimately the challenges that Alberta is going through, and I think we've got the right person heading up the pipeline work in Canada, which the department of which, of course, is NRCan, Natural Resources Canada. The infrastructure department, the infrastructure that we're concerned with, that we have a mandate to build, does not include energy infrastructure. It really is under those four original streams of transit, community infrastructure, green infrastructure, and rural and northern infrastructure. And for the moment, at least until a mandate letter might change one day, that does not include energy infrastructure. Thank you both for the responses. Craig, do you have a follow-up question? Or I have a couple already if anyone else wants to contribute. But Craig, do you have a follow-up? Just a real quick one. Where would fiber fall in connectivity, telecom, in one of those buckets? As in rural broadband, things like that? Yes, exactly. Well, we have a pretty aggressive funding scheme. I represent, as does Andy, a pretty urban community, so I'm not as conversant with that. But I know that we underwrite, and significantly so, and in some cases this is cost shared with provinces, in other cases not, private sector development. We basically put out blocks of coverage to private sector partners, and then we fund broadband or high-speed internet development in rural areas. That continues, and it's very expensive. It neither seems to go as fast as our rural residents want it to go, or cover as much territory as is initially promised. But I know it's a very clear priority of the federal government. So much so, in fact, that a minister is essentially in a ministry has been created to manage it. Maryam Monsef is the Minister of Rural Economic Development, and her mandate is primarily, although not exclusively, but primarily the creation of the Universal Broadband Fund, which will help the government to achieve its 2019 campaign promise of connecting every household in Canada. I believe it was within the next 10 years. A wildly expensive proposition, but absolutely fundamental, as we all on this call understand, for rural economies. I'll add that the rural and northern bucket of money under the Investing in Canada infrastructure plan also provides funding for connectivity. Thank you, Craig. The answer, Craig, is indirectly. I guess that's a good segue to my next question, guys. It's sort of about indirect things. We've seen a lot of collaboration between the premiers and the prime minister, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Freeland over the last couple of weeks, probably more so than most of us remember in our lifetimes. What would you say the level of connection is like between your ministers and their provincial counterparts right now, and what kind of intergovernmental considerations are underway over project delivery? To illustrate, we know that some money was announced last week for Waterloo. They've got a big transit funding project that's underway. How are things like that proceeding? How are those discussions going between the provinces and the federal government right now? I'll let Andy take that. Yeah, sure. I mentioned a few minutes ago that the ICIP, forgive the acronyms, the Investing in Canada infrastructure plan money is delivered to the provinces and thence to communities through the mechanism of the integrated bilateral agreement, the IBA. Right now, because of COVID, negotiations are underway between Minister McKenna and the Infrastructure Department and all provinces and territories to amend the IBAs. I think renegotiate is too big of a word, but we're looking to amend them to create that fifth new stream that I mentioned and also to introduce new flexibilities into the existing streams. Every province and every territory is different. They're politically different. Their mood and tone is a little bit different. Their needs are certainly different geographically. Those negotiations are proceeding at different rates depending on where we are geographically, but are going well. I expect that we'll have those IBAs all ironed out. I'd be a fool, I guess, to put a timeline on it, but this summer, certainly, I would expect. Oh, you're muted there, Rob. I have one hand up here for a question from the floor, but Mr. McKenna, did you want to add anything to that or are we? Well, our minister has a pretty new relationship with her provincial counterparts, mostly centered around PPE purchasing and supply, and they've been meeting regularly as well. So that is a new, I mean, just in support of the general collaborative tone that has certainly contributed to that. And I hope, because there are a lot of, when you consider the scope and scale of the department that I'm here representing, there are a lot of things that would be potential areas for collaboration. Rob, as you're well aware, if only to update and help regulate and move this construction sector ahead, as you know, there are a suite of issues that could be considered, whether you want to call it federal leadership or merely federal, I don't know, federal chairmanship or chairpersonship of a process that would lead to a better, more efficient future for construction. Generally, I think our department and our minister would be well positioned to lead that discussion. It's not COVID related, of course, but no less important for that. Thank you. And I have a question from Mike Dexter, who I'm going to open the floor to. Mike, you may now unmute. Good afternoon, Mr. Bob Henderson has a question for you guys. Gentlemen, with all the data coming out, so I'm pretty sure the COVID numbers in Canada are trending in the right direction, at least down. Would you hazard a guess as to the timing of opening the borders? And then with that potential about the new NAFTA-KUSMA agreement, do you feel like there would be some benefit yet this year? Benefit to what specifically, Michael? Just trade and just business economy uptick in general. I'll give it a start. And Andy, you feel free to jump in at any stage. On the opening the border, I think that's quite literally a month-to-month situation. I think the governments evaluate that on a month-to-month basis, probably one month in advance. And I think that will continue. You're quite right to observe that Canada is headed generally in the right direction. I think maybe even more than generally in the right direction, is headed in the right direction. But I don't think it's any secret that a lot of parts of the United States aren't necessarily. So that's obviously something that needs to continue to be considered by public health folks on both sides of the border. And in terms of the new NAFTA, I still don't have my head around the other acronym. Yeah, I mean, there are supply chains that I know both governments have worked very hard to keep open through this pandemic. And I think you'd have to say that we've been generally successful in doing that, whether it's the famous auto part loop that goes back and forth across the border three or four times to finish an automobile, or whether it is in construction, in construction materials, or in any other number of areas to numerous to count. There is, I think, I think it's really been status quo. I don't think either the new NAFTA or the pandemic, either one, have had a lot of impact on those relationships and those supply chains. And that is obviously all to the good. The fact that we were able to finalize that agreement on literally on the day before everything shut down, I think is very much something that Canada should be proud of. And we were able to salt that one away for safekeeping so that we can emerge, I think, in having businesses and firms in a much more certain environment when it comes to knowing what the rules of the road are going to be on trade between our three countries in a pandemic and post pandemic. So that's what I would say about that. We're an exporting nation. We need that agreement, that certainty, and we have it. So all good. The Atlantic provinces were elated on Friday when the four premiers of those provinces announced the Atlantic bubble. So essentially, inter-provincial travel in the four maritime provinces is now wide open, no longer needing to 14-day quarantine. This is creating a great hope for all kinds of things, tourism high on the list, but also it's going to ease things in the construction world as well. But the countries in every province is different, as I mentioned previously, and certainly there are pockets of real mess down in the United States right now, and things seem to be getting worse in some of those pockets. So it makes me think, you know, when you look at your mortgage payment and it's that histogram, and your mortgage payment is always the same every month, but at the beginning it's almost all interest and depressingly little principal, and over time that changes. Well, I think you can sort of map that same histogram onto this. At the beginning, our response was almost all health-based and very little economic-based, but that's shifting. The histogram is shifting, and more and more the economy is working its way into decision-making, and I think that's a trend that's going to continue. So that's, as Steve said, I think one month at a time on the U.S. border, but I think we're heading, becoming more comfortable with this pandemic such that the economy is a reasonable thing to start to factor into decision-making much more than it was a month or two ago. Thank you very much, and the floor continues to be open to questions for anyone who wants to ask these two gentlemen questions, but one thing that I do want to let you folks know about and make very clear is that there have been some rumblings of the U.S. trying to push aluminum tariffs on Canada, and that has been something that AED has been a strong supporter, a strong proponent against, and a proponent for free trade both in Canada and in the U.S., so the organization has a strong voice in both national capitals and is very supportive of free trade that helps goods move across the border, especially like what you were saying, Parliamentary Secretary McKinnon, the importance of manufacturing and raw materials and secondary goods and supply chains going across the border multiple times to be produced, so that's important for you folks to know that you've got friends in Washington on that regard. To add a little bit onto the question I asked previously about the interprovincial and intergovernmental activities, I know that there have been a lot of efforts between your two departments. What kind of interdepartmental activities are underway that it would be helpful for members of the industry to know about? As you know well, Rob, and as Andy knows as well, we have convened a construction industry forum, if you will, that our department chairs. We meet every couple of weeks. And yes, we go through the sort of immediate right in your face challenges that the sector that the industry is facing currently. And I can tell you that the sector and the industry is very well represented on that call in terms of current challenges, and also look past COVID as to what is going to be required. So, you know, we are seized with things like liquidity, things like the COVID-related cost overruns on, say, federal projects that we know exist. So those things are certainly topics. We're also looking down the field, if you will, at issues like apprenticeships, issues like procurement of construction management, construction generally, design-build type concepts and some of the tools that are used by the Government of Canada to get its own projects done. I'm not, of course, referring to cost-shared infrastructure projects like the ones Andy is in charge of. And I know Andy will be joining us here in a couple of weeks as we do talk about those cost-shared programs and some of the changes that they're working on with the provincial level. So the construction sector is very much front of mind. I do want to say this and perhaps give you this sort of food for thought and maybe a little tiny bit of a homework assignment. I think there is a notion that the construction industry has survived, so to speak, the pandemic better than maybe other industries. And certainly there's some truth to that in some places. There is a lot of risk, though, out there, as we know, with whether it be residential construction or just basic capital spending plans on the part of companies or municipalities or provincial governments, road construction and the like. So there's a lot of question marks, a lot of uncertainty out there. And we all know that most recoveries, most economic recoveries, are at least led in part by construction and hence infrastructure renewal and literally letting people see bulldozers and cranes and giving them the confidence that goes with that. So I would urge on you to continue to make that point. And since I know your Washington representative is on here as well, Daniel, I would continue to make that point at the national level in the U.S. as well, that the construction industry is going to need some tender loving care as well and some active investment and engagement on the part of national governments. And certainly that's something I believe. I know that's something that our government is seized with. And we've put our money where our mouth is on the cost shared front that Andy looks after. But keep making your voice heard. If I could take a second to go back to the beginning of your question, which was around interdepartmental cooperation. One example that comes to mind is, again, the broadband question. So that's a policy lead from the from innovation, science and economic development. I said it is a the fund is being led by rural economic development and the relationship with the provinces through that will be managed by the infrastructure department. So that's one example of multiple departments working together on a shared outcome. But then to come back to the to the construction industry for a moment, I've been on a handful of calls with construction industry professionals like yourselves. One of the recent ones was with DCI, the Design Construction Institute here in here in Nova Scotia. And one of the and I just want to test an idea that they presented to me with you. They suggested that stimulus or new money for construction, as Stephen has said, it's always a part of recovery. We have to be careful with it because it could have the perverse outcome of causing inflation. If there's competition for for for work crews, for construction equipment, for materials, that's going to drive the price up. And at the very moment when we're trying to keep prices down and let people into the market, we could be causing inflated prices. Is that is that something that that resonates or that you may have even discussed? I'm happy to open that up, Daniel, it looked like you had a question, but do you have any experience on that from from the U.S.? I would actually defer to Craig or so I'm just kind of so you know, one thing in the U.S. where we learned, I think, a lesson back in 2009 was where we flooded a lot of money towards shovel ready projects, which really provided very not as much market value for our members as we would have hoped to kept contractors in business and kind of, you know, these quick paving projects. But contractors didn't need to buy equipment and they didn't have that certainty that's needed. And so I think, you know, one of my and certainly, Mr. McKenna, appreciate your comments. Our top priority in D.C. right now is trying to get an infrastructure bill done. Unfortunately, I think either you guys take the situation a lot more seriously or you just have a more functional government system than we have in the U.S. But for whatever reason, we can't seem to interact together. And I, you know, like to use you guys as kind of an example of what we should be doing in a lot of ways, because we I mean, I agree with you. We need an influx of money now. And then also, I believe the long term is very important to show our customers, particularly that there's going to be projects three, four or five years down the line. This isn't just a one time sort of thing. And so I would defer to someone else. I don't know. Maybe Craig could answer on the inflation side of things, but I've never I have not heard that as being an issue in terms of at least on the U.S. side. Craig, is that a worry for you? I think you have to unmute him. I just don't want to unmute people if they're not ready to talk. Craig's always ready. That's his vice chair. So it's maybe he's not. Geez, I hope that never happens to me. Are you there? It's like, yeah, we can hear you. Sorry, I've got too many mutes going on here. I'm not sure I've got the economic stature here to answer from an inflation perspective. I'm not sure I haven't heard that. What is driving prices on equipment is uncertainty. So, you know, some of our our supply chain is up and down in terms of what they think forecasting is, like the way we forecast it back in January versus now is completely on its head, which is creating issues within the supply chain, the the the dollar variability because most of the stuff that we get here in Canada, of course, comes out of the United States is probably driving the pricing more than anything. And then just go back to, you know, things like tariffs, steel, aluminum, those kinds of things were playing around with pricing as well. And I just heard the other day that there's kind of some rumors around some tariff stuff fighting around again, too. So I would say those things are going to affect equipment pricing more than inflation. The the capacity to do work is in labor. That's where the bottleneck is, is getting the people to do it. Thank you, Craig. Does anyone else have anything to add? I know, Bob, you've spent lots of time in the industry. Not to not to say that you're an old timer, but you've been through a few ups and downs in the sector. Do you have any recollection that you could share on the inflationary pressures side of things with with stimulus? Sure. Did you did you unmute us? So, yeah, we can hear you. All right. Actually, Craig, just summed up in one word when I was going to give you a little bit of discourse on it, and it was labor. So let's go back to pre-March, first of all, with the interest rates, you know, almost non-existent and with the money out there and availability. But pre-March, a lot of our contractors, a lot of the industry had so much work. And so people were starting to push it out and said, well, OK, could you be here in three months or could you start the project in six months? So they weren't canceling projects, nor were they rebidding projects. They basically were just pushing projects out and then the contractors would try to work those in. And the whole point was workforce, just what Craig said, labor. So that's been the limiting issue. They have tried and tried to get inflation's ugly head back on the radar, and it just isn't there. And I don't know what it's going to take to get it there, particularly in this labor situation we have, unless all of a sudden we had a whole bunch of workforce available and then everybody's out there trying to grab every job they can. But it just is not the case right now. Now, again, COVID notwithstanding and coming eventually out of this thing, we pray at some point, does that change? I don't know. And right now, I don't think so. But I know a lot of the folks, especially the Keynesian and those kind of economists have always tried to raise that specter of inflation, and it just doesn't fly. Maybe just a related comment. Look, there is no question. I'm from the Ottawa, the National Capital Region, and he's from the East Coast. The thing that we have in common is that both in Quebec and Atlantic Canada, we have an aging workforce. We have failed to, despite really 25 years of demography and warnings, failed to renew a number of critical labor forces like nursing and teaching. Construction is certainly high, high, high on that list. So pre-March, there was a clear labor shortage in the construction industry. There's no question about that. I don't know if that's particularly true about people who use heavy equipment, but it's certainly true in the trades. And we have to get really smart about apprenticeships, and we have to get really smart about planning and projecting a future labor force, because the infrastructure needs are not going to recede on either side of the border. Certainly that is a very acute problem in the United States. I don't know how they're going to get their heads around what is an incredibly acute, specifically urban problem. Here in Canada, we have some strategic infrastructure. We're way behind on lots of things, and we're way behind on asset management. We are way, way behind on looking after our own assets, whether they be military bases or federal bridges or federal office buildings. In fact, our parliament building is now under a 10-year renovation project that was started 25 years too late. So there's no better metaphor than that one. And we have to get really smart about renewing that labor force. Mr. Fillmore, do you have anything to add there? I know that you have lots of opinions, I'm sure, about asset management and other items as a former city planner. You're on mute, but I think we can unmute you. We often call it state of good repair and that kind of thing. Well, one thing that's really come to the fore for me lately, I happen to represent a district in which there are three large universities and a community college. If I go out one or two districts in either direction, we've got about six or seven universities in Canada are facing, I think it's a $7 billion deferred maintenance deficit. And so we've been steering universities who are coming to us with big projects for shiny new buildings and saying, beautiful, no program for that right now, why don't you instead focus your advocacy on state of good repair, a state of good repair program. And so that's where we're successfully steering universities now is to look after what they already have. But as we all know, that cuts across every sector, whether it's infrastructure in the ground or roads and rails and even bike paths. So this creates an opportunity, I think, the need for job creation and shovel-ready projects. Well, in one sector education, we've got $7 billion worth of shovel-ready projects, which are deferred maintenance projects. There was the knowledge infrastructure program back in 2008, 2009. It was one of the first things that got rolled out by the government in terms of the economic recovery. It was like, they're going to save Ford, GM and Chrysler for southwestern Ontario. And then it was $2 billion to universities and colleges. And I think one of the benefits of that program at the time was that by addressing some of the deferred maintenance, they also created opportunities for those institutions to look at their next steps with a little bit more clarity and with a little bit less of the worry that they'd have to spend all of their operating revenue on keeping old buildings going that were in disrepair or that were costing them more money from like an efficiency standpoint. So it's very cyclical and circular and creates opportunities for other new projects as well. With that, I know that we have the full hour, but we have one question here. Mike, you got your hand up? Yeah. Bob wants to say a question. I would just say back to workforce and we've had, obviously, we're very envious of the apprentice program in Canada and obviously Europe as well. It is something that never got traction in the United States, really not sure why. And so that's one of the things we do. I don't know if you gentlemen are familiar with that, but we do accredit community colleges, two-year programs, associate degree programs, don't have a red seal like you folks do, which again, very impressive. But one of the things I hear before was the schools in Canada weren't that excited about talking to us. We have a set of industry standards we utilize because they were getting everyone employed, right? All these apprentices were employed, had jobs and were all I think. And meanwhile, as Craig and all these folks on the call can tell you, we've had this drastic workforce shortage that makes it virtually impossible to grow much. So now with things, so we're working with people like in BCC, VCC in Vancouver, British Columbia, Grand Prairie, Nate and Sate in Alberta, Centennial and Conestoga coming east in Ontario. Now, let me just stop there and just hope Andy could help us here. But when we mentioned Quebec, everybody rolls their eyes and says, well, that's a whole another thing. And you probably don't want to get into it. So we have nothing going on there. So if we, let's just say we theoretically skip over Quebec for the moment and go out east, we have nothing going on in the Atlantic, in the Maritimes. And we would be really, really interested and very much enthused. Right now we've been supporting through bursary. That's basically all we've been able to do. But now with all these schools coming back and very interested in a diesel technology curriculum outside the apprentice program or alongside, we're also working with high schools in Canada. We have a high school, kind of a new high school program going on in the States. And we're moving that into Canada. Again, just started, but again, getting some traction. It's very exciting. So any help on the Maritimes, anything east, and I'll let Quebec, someone who understands that better, take that on. But anyway, we would certainly be interested to have some kind of a channel, some kind of a link to schools that would like to talk to us about diesel technology. Michael, if I can invite you to send me an email, I'm pretty easy to find with a quick Google, or I'll tell you what, I'll drop it in the chat here, my email address, and I can connect you with one or two organizations for sure. Can I just, while you open the door to trades and to apprenticeships and all that, I just have to share with you, this morning I visited an electric vehicle maintenance and sort of rebuild location. It's a startup here in Halifax. Remarkable stuff, but they've recruited a vehicle maintenance technician from the Nova Scotia Community College, a young woman, she's 18 or 19, and she's on the first time. It's a track only for electric vehicles. And so she's got a full-time work while she's in school at this maintenance shop. And the guys who run the place told me that she is the best electric vehicle technician in Eastern Canada, and she's like 19 years old, and there's nobody else even close to her. So there's something to think about the future as well, okay? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we've also... Do you know all of our dealers? They sell Tesla and they're a reseller, so they sell a number. What they do is they take ones that have been banged up and written off by insurance companies and put them back together, and it's all those. Very circular economy. Yeah. So this is one final big question. I don't know if it's a communications question or if it's a policy standpoint yet, but lately, and this is not just for Mr. Fillmore, Minister McKenna has been talking about shovel-worthy as opposed to shovel-ready, and there has been a lot of conversation out there about what shovel-worthy means. What's your definition of shovel-worthy? Well, I'll take a crack at that. So back when I had a senior position in my city's planning department before becoming elected and the previous government's infrastructure plan came into position, our city... This is sort of a microcosm I'm describing to you. Our city had been working hard on plans for a number of years for some progressive projects like district energy and solar arrays and that kind of thing on municipal buildings, but they didn't meet that shovel-ready criteria. So we were kind of forced, in a sense, to sort of set the clock back a little bit and come up with projects to be able to participate in that recovery program that maybe we ordinarily wouldn't have done. And that was the first time I heard the concept of shovel-worthy. Now, you may remember about a month and a half ago, there was an article in the National Post where... I can't remember who wrote it, but I think it was the voice of the construction industry or perhaps the energy industry, where it was suggested that Catherine McKenna might set aside some of the progressive filters that may have the tendency to slow down projects a little bit, like Indigenous consultation or the climate lens, prior consent and prior and informed consent, that kind of thing. And she came out pretty fast and pretty strong and said, you know, we're not going to sacrifice the progressive elements of this generational infrastructure program at this moment. In fact, if anything, the need to do things quickly can help to accelerate our transition to a low-carbon economy and to a sort of a more just society and one where we consult people effectively and so forth. So I think that kind of gets to the heart of it. And I think when you hear our government talk about shovel-worthy, it is about whether or not the projects can contribute to some of the things that we're trying to do differently and better in Canada than perhaps we were doing 20, 25 years ago. It's a touchy topic. I'm well aware of it. I may have just stumbled right into it there, but that's my take on it. Mr. McKinnon, anything to add? Well, so Andy gets all the sexy stuff, you know, the municipal, the nice transit projects and, you know, community-type infrastructure, sport, cultural, all that kind of stuff. We look after government office buildings and military bases, and certainly we are compiling a list of both shovel-ready and shovel-worthy projects that, as I say, have been deferred. And these are critical pieces of infrastructure, any way you slice it. Of course, there will have to be some prioritization, even within the government. Even within that category of things, but there are a lot of things that the federal government has not done and that have to be done. But as we undertake that work, for example, we have a major government complex in Ottawa that you will have all seen when you've, in Gatineau rather, sorry, that you will have all seen when you come to the Nation's Cabin. It's called Place du Poltage. It is the largest complex of federal, single complex of federal public servants. It needs to be redone. It has needed to be redone for a couple of decades now, but it will be redone such that it will be the greenest federal office building in our real property fleet, so to speak. It will house more public servants, not less, but using space much more effectively such that people will be technologically enabled. People will be able to, in the case of a pandemic, space out better and all manner of things. It will be just an incredible move forward. That's a shovel-worthy project in our world and one that is absolutely critically important. So, those shovel-worthy projects will, of necessity, mean they're smarter, they're technologically enabled, and they're greener. We're going to continue down that path. Thank you very much for those comments and thank you both to Andy Fomore and Stephen McKinnon for taking part today. I think as a closing thought, you both gave us a lot to think about and a lot of information that will be helpful for businesses, whether it's in accessing the programs that are available to them or positioning their business planning for the months and years ahead. We're certainly going to share this commentary with all of the other members of AED in Canada, and I know that there were a lot of folks on the line who didn't ask questions, but folks that we will make sure to follow up with, especially if you have local projects that you think are worthwhile, if they are shovel-worthy, let us know about them, bring it to the AED team's attention, and we'll help you with coordinating how that can be best delivered to your provincial government or the federal government, because there's no time like the present. With that, if there are any closing thoughts, we'd love to hear them, but if not, we're happy to have had your participation. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Thanks so much. It's a wonderful conversation, and oh, geez, I forgot to put my email address in the chat. I'm going to do that right now. Anybody at all, if you want to follow up with anything, I'm always easy to find. Thanks for having us on. And Rob has my email as well, so anytime. We're the easiest guys in the world to find. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, have a good afternoon. Take care all. Thanks. Bye.

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