Now, with apologies to our contractors, our contractors are better salesmen than the guy on the slide, but what do they sell? A really important point in all of this is they sell the ability to man the job. Sure, they also sell their skill in managing the work, their engineering and their warranty. But they sell us, the working people here in Canada. The people who can always get the job done.

That ability for us to man the contractor with the right people at the right time has created a very powerful partnership. And that partnership has been a positive force in our industry. They have skills to sell. Remember, we the unions, have only one thing to sell: skilled people.

Where are the jobs in Canada? Well, there's work, either potential or actual, everywhere in the country. Remember, 90 percent of all Canadians live within 200 miles of the U.S. border — that really makes us Americans with universal health care and gun control.

Every region in Canada is experiencing, or soon will experience, major growth. In Atlantic Canada, the potential is just beginning to build with the offshore and with the hydro potential for the Lower Churchill [hydroelectric project in Labrador]. In the province of Quebec, we have two to three years of outstanding work left or on the books. In Ontario, it is hydropower generation or automobiles. Ontario is a heated economy. On the prairies, whether it's hydro in Manitoba, oil and potash in Saskatchewan, or the oil sands in Alberta, the work is out of control.

On the West Coast, it's gold, diamonds, oil, gas, and pipelines. The Olympic Mountains region has the strongest economy in 25 years and is a treasure trove of natural resources in the north.

I'll press the technology [slide] again.

Oil and gas, from this slide — it's not just in Alberta. The orange on the slide is what is producing today in the Western Canada sedimentary basin. The very dark orange is the oil sands. The oil sands represents over a trillion barrels worth of recoverable oil — the second largest proven oil reserve in the world. The only oil lake that is bigger is Saudi Arabia and there is $135 billion worth of industrial construction going to happen where those little dark red circles are in the next 10 years.