Finance committee  Well, we don't know exactly what's happening, although we do know that some of the players who are in gas retailing are in the last few months showing higher profits than they have ever shown, so we would applaud the idea of doing some research into this rocket-and-feather effect.

Finance committee  There's no doubt that most Canadians are feeling quite good about the fact that they're saving money. It's giving them positive feelings in what we'll call the microeconomic context. The question in their minds is, how long will this last? They haven't thought a lot about the macroeconomic, outside of—

Finance committee  I couldn't speak to it; I'm not an economist. But if it doesn't last and all other things are equal, and if other economic indicators go bad, that's not going to be a good thing.

Finance committee  Mark could probably speak to this more than I could. What we see is the same thing that some others have alluded to. These are more long-term kinds of changes. People buy a car once every three or four years. They won't change their behaviour in the short term as quickly unless of course they have a lease and then they might want to switch over.

Finance committee  It may be in some parts of the country where they see the macroeconomic forces being more significant and more long term, as in Alberta. I'm not sure that's true anywhere else.

Finance committee  All I said was that in Alberta what the data tells us is that the concern around the macroeconomic aspect of this has taken hold to a greater extent than it has in the rest of Canada.

Finance committee  So far, most members are pretty happy about it. This is the thing, though: again, most consumers on a day-to-day level are thinking about relatively short term, relatively microeconomic considerations, and because they fill their vehicles with gas once a week, it tends to be a reference point for how they're feeling overall.

Finance committee  Thanks for having me. It's very much appreciated. The Canadian Automobile Association is a representative organization of 6.1 million Canadians. We're very active in the consumer space. We're keen to stay apprised of key issues affecting Canadian consumers that cover the waterfront of the areas we're in, specifically around vehicles and things like gas prices.

Transport committee  I'm going to echo what Tim said on this notion of transparency. We think in a lot of cases decisions are getting made. I think the stimulus spending money was spent in very specific ways because there was a very specific set of needs that needed to happen relatively immediately.

Transport committee  I mean with some set-asides, like we talk about for size of community, for intelligent infrastructure kinds of transportation, and frankly within the boundaries of not just transit. Transit is critical, but it's not the only thing.

Transport committee  In terms of how we function in relation to our clubs, the word I use is facilitator. We work as a facilitating agent. Ideas bubble up from them, and we try to help create a forum where information is shared, and people understand what's working and not working in different jurisdictions.

Transport committee  We feel strongly that it's helpful when those players have input to the criteria. It's a good thing. Usually they have more buy-in to the process in the end, but at the end of the day the general criterion is probably the limit by which we would want to be directly involved in telling our clubs what to do.

Transport committee  I think it's a combination, because I think what is important is the ideas probably need to come from the bottom up, but at the end of the day the reality is that the federal government is going to have to come to the table with a significant share of the dollars. There are two parts to this equation.

Transport committee  The issue's brand-new and the data collection is brand-new. They're just starting to collect this data. We see a few jurisdictions in the U.S. doing it. We don't see any in Canada yet starting to collect that data. One of the big challenges with texting while driving.... I think we all observe it.

Transport committee  The way it has been working under the Building Canada fund, under the stimulus spending, we would probably want to debate the criteria that have been included and those that would be included in the next version of the Building Canada fund. But at the end of the day, to us it's all about the degree to which the federal government is prescriptive with the money.