Senator Gerba: I’ve already received an answer to part of my question, so I’ll reformulate it for Mr. Strickland.

Bill C-5 seeks to facilitate labour mobility and harmonize interprovincial trade. As such, it will give businesses, especially big businesses, some real opportunities.

I would like to know what you recommend or what you consider doable with respect to procurement and government contracts. Are there measures or practices that should be implemented to ensure that Bill C-5 can establish standards that will enable companies owned by minorities, women and immigrants to access procurement opportunities with government and big business?

Mr. Strickland: Thank you, senator, and absolutely. The government put into place for the Clean Economy investment tax credits an incentive for hydrogen, small modular reactors and carbon sequestration. The Senate passed that bill, that in order to achieve your maximum tax credit of 30% you had to meet labour standards, and those labour standards were prevailing wages, the best wages that were available in the sector — which are construction members wages — and mandatory minimum apprenticeship requirements.

I think similarly for this major projects database and one approval process for one project, labour standards and apprenticeship requirements need to be put into place.

Moreover, I think that because of the nature of these projects that are going to occur from coast to coast, two years ago, the Senate also passed the Labour Mobility Deduction, which was something our group has been advocating for 30 years to provide an incentive for tradespeople up to $4,000 to move from one location to another to go to work, not on a permanent basis but on a semi-permanent basis. Our members often get shipped out for three weeks on, two weeks off in various locations across the country, and if those travel costs aren’t covered by their contract, they have to incur those costs on their own. This is an impediment to labour mobility across Canada.

Now we have $4,000 in place if the worker has to travel more than 150 kilometres. We’re proposing that get increased to $10,000 and decrease the travel zone to 120 kilometres. That will also encourage greater labour mobility across the country when those costs are not covered by the contract.

So I think there’s a whole bunch of different things that can be done to encourage labour mobility right across the country.