PETER SHAWN TAYLOR SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 25, 2018 Canadians love to search for bargains. We’ll drive halfway across town to save 5¢ a litre on gas. We’ll wear out the Internet haggling over car prices and comparison shopping for furniture or clothes. And c’mon, does anyone pay that much for paper towels? (Haven’t you seen the price at Costco?) Yet when it comes to paying the bills for some of the biggest-ticket items in the country, that famous Canadian dedication to shopping around seems to fly out the window. Despite all our fretting over pennies, some provinces deliberately ignore the tremendous benefits of competition and comparison when tendering their most expensive public infrastructure projects. It’s a lousy way to shop. In Ontario, due to a quirk in provincial labour laws, several municipalities are permanently prevented from taking advantage of robust competitive bidding. Toronto, Hamilton, Sault Ste. Marie and Waterloo Region have all been certified as construction employers, and must therefore operate under closed-shop rules. Click to read the rest: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/rob-magazine/article-the-high-cost-of-unionized-contractors/ (Paywall)