Mr. Speaker, tendering the contract through the BIP policy does not do the equipment operator any good. He doesn't get hired. By the time the process is through and the contract is over, that is the time you can see whether or not the contractor did hire local people. It doesn't force him to hire local people; it just punishes him if he doesn't. That doesn't put money into equipment operators' pockets. We have heard from Mr. Morin just recently, Mr. Speaker, that we have the highest number of trained equipment operators per capita. That is true. We will also go through the process of spending a large amount of money training these people further in Fort Smith. We don't seem to be getting any benefit out of it for the equipment operators. There are a number of equipment operators who have been trained for the Beaufort Sea oil and gas projects who are out of work and would be happy to take a seasonal job. That is the other thing about this, Mr. Speaker. These are seasonal jobs and if they don't get the benefits now, these guys are without work all year.
So my question to the Minister of Transportation is how is he intending to put these equipment operators to work before the season is out. How is the contractor going to be made to fulfil that obligation?