TRAN Committee Report

Supplementary Opinion of the Liberal Party of Canada

April 11^th, 2022

Our Government is committed to making critical infrastructure investments across the country. These investments are critical as we build back better; they will create good jobs, grow our economy, create inclusive communities, and tackle climate change.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) is taking a new approach that is impacting the way infrastructure is funded in Canada. By attracting private sector and institutional investors to infrastructure projects in the Canadian public interest, the CIB has attracted over $7.2B from private and institutional investors and is advancing work on 33 projects across the country.

In his testimony, Mr. Mark Romoff, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships noted:

 “The CIB has the expertise, and specialized knowledge that can prove invaluable to advancing and completing these infrastructure projects…

The real benefit of the bank engaging in these projects is, in fact, to help de-risk those projects and to make them more attractive to private capital to partner with them in order to enable these larger, more complex projects to come to market. That's a very significant piece of the equation.”

From investments in clean power, to zero-emission vehicles, to broadband the CIB is making significant gains in accelerating investments in Canadian infrastructure.

Infrastructure Investments

In his testimony to the committee, Dr. Ryan Riordan, Associate Professor, Institute for Sustainable Finance, Queen's University, noted: “…the Canada Infrastructure Bank will be an effective avenue to encourage, and stimulate public-private partnerships as one of the many avenues to help mobilize private capital.”

The REM project is the biggest transit project in Quebec in over 50 years; 680,000 tons of greenhouse gases will be reduced over 25 years and there'll be 34,000 jobs.

$407-million investment in the Alberta irrigation project, will result in up to 6,800 direct and indirect permanent jobs and up to 1,280 construction jobs. It will also open an estimated 200,000 acres of more productive agricultural land. This project has kick-started the largest agricultural irrigation expansion in the history of the province.

Both projects have significant non-governmental funding.

Indigenous Infrastructure

The Canada Infrastructure Bank has a target to invest $1B in Indigenous infrastructure projects both in partnership with, and for benefit of Indigenous communities. We believe they have an important role to play in supporting investments in Indigenous infrastructure and are making important strides to achieve these goals with active participation in projects like the Oneida Energy Storage and Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link.

The Oneida battery energy storage project is the largest battery storage project in Canada and among the largest in the world. Importantly, it is a partnership between an innovative Canadian company and the Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation.

The Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link involves the construction of a new 1,200-kilometre, 150-megawatt transmission line with fibre-optic cabling to Nunavut from Manitoba. This project is bringing renewable, sustainable and reliable hydroelectricity to modernize electricity systems and potentially reduce reliance on diesel power generation while supporting the economic interest of Indigenous Peoples in remote communities.

There was an identified need for CIB investments in Indigenous infrastructure including from Ms. Tabatha Bull, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business noted:

“The inclusivity of CIB, their management of risk and willingness to pursue creative financial structures can help build out vital indigenous infrastructure. Additionally, CIB instills confidence needed in project financing to help dispel myths of indigenous investment risk, which should facilitate greater investment by private sector developers in future projects.”

Additionally, Chief Sharleen Gale, Chair, First Nations Major Projects Coalition, raised: “We see a role for the Canada Infrastructure Bank to play in filling a critical gap concerning capital access to first nations and all indigenous people. Access to capital at competitive rates is a barrier to achieving broad-based economic participation by indigenous people in major projects.”

These projects are excellent examples of working together to unlock potential and advance the process of reconciliation.

Conclusion

We believe strongly, the CIB is an important tool in the Government’s toolkit when it comes to generating smart investments in Canadian infrastructure. The CIB does not provide grants and does not invest when the private sector can do so alone. The CIB is instead a credible made-in-Canada way of doing things to stretch public dollars further and attract private capital to get more infrastructure built for the benefit of Canadians.

Canadians can rest assured every public dollar spent on infrastructure is creating jobs, attracting investment, fighting climate change, promoting social equity and building the economy of the future.