:
Madam Speaker, today we are debating the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities' report on the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I am actually surprised that we are debating this today, because the committee released its report on the Canada Infrastructure Bank in May 2022, and here it is, fall 2023. It was tabled quite a while ago, and we had the opportunity to debate it well before now.
That said, there may be one thing worth talking about, and that is the recommendation in the report. That may be one of the reasons the Conservatives wanted to have this debate. In many cases, committees produce reports, study issues and make a number of recommendations. In this case, the report on the Canada Infrastructure Bank contained a single recommendation.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention that the Liberal member for , who spoke before me and who speaks very regularly in the House, does not seem to have bothered to read the committee's report before giving his speech. He said that the Conservatives were against it, and he is right. However, he also said that the other parties should listen to him before taking a position. Perhaps he did not know that the other parties had already taken a position. If there was a committee report, it is because the parties took a position. If there were any recommendations from the committee, it is because the various parties took a position on this issue.
What I can say is that we produced a strong majority report and that the majority agreed on the only recommendation, which was to abolish the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Votes are secret; they are held in camera. How could we get a majority if the government disagreed? It is probably because all the other parties voted in favour of the recommendation. When the report was produced, everyone agreed that it was necessary to abolish the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
To gain a better understanding of what the Canada Infrastructure Bank is and of its raison d'être from the Quebec perspective, we looked at what cities, provinces and the federal government own, respectively, in terms of infrastructure in Canada. We wondered what role the federal government plays when it comes to infrastructure. In short, 98% of infrastructure does not belong to the federal government. Only 2% of infrastructure belongs to the federal level.
Why, then, is the federal government getting involved in matters of infrastructure? There is a fundamental problem here. Some $35 billion has been invested in the bank, but it is not up to the federal government to decide or to dictate to cities and provinces how they should manage their infrastructure, especially since it owns only 2% of infrastructure. It is our cities and our governments, including the Quebec government, that are in charge of infrastructure, so that is where the money should be going. Because of this basic principle, we thought it made no sense to support a federal infrastructure bank, which is ultimately a blatant intrusion in areas of jurisdiction that are not its own.
Nearly all of the witnesses were very critical of the infrastructure bank. The Liberal member who spoke earlier may not be aware of this, but I did not hear many witnesses praising the Canada Infrastructure Bank. In fact, I cannot name even one.
Perhaps the member knows this, because he has been in politics for several years now, but I want to mention that the Canada Infrastructure Bank was part of the Liberals' 2015 election platform. The Liberals could therefore say that they ran for election and put in place what was in their platform. I would like to take that one step further, however, and specify that the infrastructure bank that was put in place and the infrastructure bank that was in their election platform are a bit different.
On page 15 of the 2015 platform, it says that the Canada Infrastructure Bank would provide municipalities with lower interest rates on loans related to the construction of infrastructure and housing. That is interesting because we are talking about the housing crisis right now. However, we would be searching for a long time to find the word “housing” in the documents of today's infrastructure bank, because it is not there. As for the municipalities, the infrastructure bank also does not finance municipal projects at low rates. The Canada Infrastructure Bank's direction has changed over time.
After it took office, the Liberal government decided to set up the Advisory Council on Economic Growth to provide guidance on how to generate more economic growth in Canada. The advisory council was chaired by none other than Dominic Barton, who is known to be a close friend of the . We know that the Prime Minister likes to appoint friends to key posts, as we saw when he endorsed his buddies from WE Charity. I will come back to that later.
During his career, Mr. Barton has also held other positions. It is worth mentioning that he was head of McKinsey. It is also worth mentioning that the Advisory Council on Economic Growth looked into the idea of an infrastructure bank. In fact, that was one of its main recommendations in its first report.
Let us talk a little more about how the advisory council saw the infrastructure bank. I mentioned that Mr. Barton was chair of the Advisory Council on Economic Growth and that he also headed up McKinsey. I should also note that Mr. Barton surrounded himself with several people, including Michael Sabia, who would later go on to play a role at the infrastructure bank.
A board needs a secretariat, people to do the real work, to take notes and keep things running. However, this particular secretariat was not made up of federal officials. It was McKinsey that provided the employees to work on the advisory council's files on a volunteer basis. It was the McKinsey employees who supplied the discussion papers, who took notes on the discussions and who kept the secretariat running.
In committee, Mr. Sabia told us this about the role of the secretariat led by the McKinsey employees:
[McKinsey] essentially act[s] as a secretariat, on a volunteer basis. The concepts and suggestions came from the board members. As you know, an advisory board needs a secretariat, and McKinsey played that role. So they have been very involved in our reports and our deliberations.
Let us not forget that the McKinsey people were working on a volunteer basis. When he came to testify in committee, I asked Mr. Barton whether these people were volunteering for the government or for McKinsey. I asked him whether these people were paid. He said that they were paid by McKinsey, not by the federal government. However, the report was for the federal government. At the end of the day, they were offering pro bono services while being funded by McKinsey.
Was that work truly pro bono? Could it really be argued that McKinsey had no interest in the matter? For example, did it not have an influence over the direction the government took in terms of future economic growth?
The advisory council was designed to advise the government on economic growth, and it was McKinsey's people who had an opportunity to exert their influence. That is my conclusion, because when looking at the now notorious first report advocating for a Canadian infrastructure development bank, it is clear that they are no longer advocating for the 2015 version of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, but rather an infrastructure bank that takes public money and uses it to benefit the private sector, large multinationals and investment funds. They want us to bring the infrastructure projects to them. They say they will finance them. Basically, they want these big funds to participate so their money is poured into our infrastructure.
Clearly this idea has evolved quite a bit from the original one. It is interesting to see this change of direction. Whether we like it or not, the McKinsey people sort of steered the advisory council in that direction. Could it be that the McKinsey employees knew people who got contracts or money as a result? Was it their area of expertise? I think a lot of people already know the answer to that question.
Practically the only difference I saw between the version promoted by the Advisory Council on Economic Growth and the Government of Canada's version was $5 billion. The Advisory Council on Economic Growth recommended an infrastructure bank funded with $40 billion, whereas the government created one funded with $35 billion. Otherwise, they are almost identical.
Led by Mr. Barton, what the Advisory Council on Economic Growth proposed was quickly implemented. In fact, about a month after that was tabled, we were already reading federal government documents that referred to a future infrastructure bank created roughly in the image of the one proposed by the Advisory Council on Economic Growth. Global Affairs Canada specifically talked about it at the Long-Term Investment Summit.
Was this decision made in the best interest of the public? I do not know. What I do know is that the Canada Infrastructure Bank was a disaster. The Conservatives are talking about it today.
The CIB was founded in 2017 and, in 2020, there were virtually no projects in existence. It had no idea where it was headed. It had a hard time recruiting employees. The board of directors was a shambles. No one there spoke French. It was a madhouse. They did not know what to do with it. The CIB was given $35 billion, but they had no direction.
In a panic, they called up Dominic Barton. As mentioned earlier, he had worked on the Advisory Council on Economic Growth with Michael Sabia. Mr. Sabia was then recruited to become chair of the CIB.
In committee, I asked Mr. Sabia how he was recruited, who recruited him, whether he sent in his CV, how this all came about. He told me that he received a phone call from Bill Morneau. I just about fell over. We are told that the CIB is not political, but it was the Minister of Finance who called him directly to tell him that he had a job for him and asked him if he would accept it. Worse yet, it was not even his department. The CIB is not the responsibility of the Department of Finance. It is the responsibility of the Department of Infrastructure.
The minister for another department was calling to tell him he had a job for him. What a wonderfully open, democratic, transparent and apolitical process this was, to be sure. I am being sarcastic, of course.
Mr. Sabia told us that when he became chair of the CIB in 2020, it was not going well, that he was there to put out fires and rescue the CIB.
However, one of his first decisions as chair of the CIB was to award a sole-source consulting contract to McKinsey. Everything is falling into place. Maybe McKinsey's volunteer work paid off in the end. It was a $1.4‑million contract. That is pretty good money. One point four million dollars is nothing to sneeze at.
He gave us an explanation as to why McKinsey was chosen. I am sorry, the document is in English.
[English]
Mr. Sabia told us, “the decision taken at the time was to use some of the people from McKinsey who had been involved in the initial thinking around the Infrastructure Bank, to draw on their accumulated knowledge.”
[Translation]
In other words, given that McKinsey knew the CIB so well, it was awarded the contract so that things would go faster. Since McKinsey thought up the CIB, it obviously knew it very well. It had told the government what to do in the first place. McKinsey got the contract, but this time, instead of telling the government what to do for free, it was charging big money. It is as if McKinsey got a second chance to tell the government the same thing, because the CIB did not really exist yet and had not quite taken form—it was spinning its wheels.
It is fascinating to observe that the kind of volunteer work we are talking about is not always completely altruistic. It can sometimes serve private interests. The government does not seem to mind.
I asked Mr. Sabia more questions when he came to see us at committee. The CIB was clearly struggling, but before he became chair of the CIB, he worked at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and one of his projects was the REM. Well, the CIB just happened to invest in the REM. All this starts to get confusing because everything is all mixed together.
The CIB invested in the REM, but before the CIB was established, the federal government had had some money for the REM. The federal government had already invested in the project. It had received a federal grant of $1.28 billion that had been announced by the current government.
That $1.28-billion federal grant magically turned into a $1.28-billion loan. There is a slight difference between a loan and a grant. It started out as a government grant. It became a loan from the CIB. Obviously, Quebec did not really come out a winner because it will pay interest on the loan rather than taking the money to the bank and using it for the project.
I asked Mr. Sabia how that decision was made and what the process had been from one to the other. He replied, “That was a decision made by the government and...the government informed us of that change.”
The government claims that the CIB is not political, and yet it directly informed the Caisse de dépôt of the change. Essentially, the CIB had so little in the way of a track record and so few projects that the government said that it was going to take a project that it was financing, stop financing it and give the money to the CIB so that the CIB could establish a track record. That is basically what happened.
That shows that the CIB is not really useful. It is not relevant. The government is taking projects that would have received funding anyway and funding them through different means, through the CIB. The CIB should have been generating billions of dollars, but instead it is generating $1 for every $8 or $10. The government promised extraordinary numbers, a huge windfall, resulting from private investments from all of these great private firms that are close to the government, but in the end, these much-talked-about investments never happened. Most of the projects that the CIB invests in are public projects, projects by our own governments and institutions, whether it be our municipalities, our cities, our provinces or the Quebec state that we hope to be one day, projects that they want and that are important to us. To find a way to make the CIB relevant, the government decided to send those projects to the CIB, but then it claims that the CIB is not political and that it is far removed from government. However, we all know that the CIB is very political. After serving as chair of the CIB from April 2020 to December 2020, Mr. Sabia magically became the deputy minister of finance from 2020 to 2023. Surely, he submitted his resumé as part of a long, open process. I am sure of it. At a certain point, it gets to be too much. No one believes it any more. That is what I wanted to demonstrate.
Unfortunately, the CIB is a hot potato that the Liberals are trying to justify. They claim it is useful and serves a purpose. However, what the cities told us when they appeared before the committee, and continue to tell us every time, is that they need money to build infrastructure for housing, water and all the municipalities' other needs. They do not need new federal programs that come with all kinds of criteria and standards that no one understands. They do not want to be forced to hire three or four people to analyze criteria every time a new program comes out or have staff work full-time to keep track of any new programs launched by the federal government and assess their compatibility with Quebec programs. At some point it never ends. Cities want to be given money directly and use it to build the infrastructure they need.
We already have a program that works. Give Quebec money so Quebec can invest in infrastructure. It would be so easy, and it works every time. There is another approach we can live with. The gas tax fund works very well. It is not perfect, and it could use some tweaking, but, generally speaking, it works very well. Cities would like to see more money there. Part of the gas tax revenue could be allocated to infrastructure projects. Cities build the infrastructure they need, not what the federal government decides they need. That is different, and it works well. Why not enhance programs like that one, which offer more leeway, through agreements with Quebec for things like the gas tax fund? No, instead the government creates programs by and for Ottawa so it can have the ribbon-cutting ceremonies that party insiders want. At the end of the day, those programs do not work. They are a dead end.
That is what I wanted to lament today. I hope the member opposite understands now why all parties except his voted against this bank.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for .
More and more often, Canadians are experiencing the extreme and harmful effects of wildfires, droughts and floods due to climate change. This year was the longest and the worst wildfire and drought season on record claiming lives, causing loss of homes and crops, and challenging Canada's freshwater security.
It has never been more critical for Canada to proactively invest in climate-ready infrastructure to protect Canadians and to make communities more resilient, physically and socially. Our communities need to be connected and supported, and need to have the ability to support growing populations that could withstand climate change. Projects need to be completed, and the federal government needs to act with more urgency.
Members of the New Democratic Party understand the urgency and have been proposing changes to the Infrastructure Bank for many years so that it would actually work for Canadians. My colleague, the member for , brought forward a private member's bill that spoke to the importance of this. It proposed public ownership of the CIB in the fight against climate change. Her bill spoke to the importance of a focus on rural and northern communities that are underfunded and left without critical infrastructure, basic infrastructure like water and roads. The Conservatives and the Liberals refused that common sense solution.
In the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, my colleague, the hon. member for , also addressed the concerns of the CIB not efficiently delivering projects that would serve the public good. He spoke of the issues arising from private sector involvement in delivering public infrastructure, of the inadequate sensitivity to the needs of communities in funding decisions and of the issues with costs and transparency.
With an ample $35 billion in federal government funding, the CIB should have, by now, been able to narrow Canada's infrastructure gap and to deliver projects that would have created jobs and supported communities for the long term. However, after years of the bank, the gap in the most basic of infrastructure needs, like water and housing, is growing. This is a failure.
When the study was done, the PBO's analysis of the bank's project selection process showed that of the 420 project proposals received, there were only 13 publicly committed to. Alarmingly, it was found that the bank had rejected, or was no longer considering, 82% of the submitted projects. Most were screened out because, somehow, it was decided they were in the wrong sector or deemed not of sufficient size.
As the large number of proposals showed, communities clearly have infrastructure needs that require federal support. However, the bank's rigid fixation with massive projects and with private sector investment means it rejects most proposals. Communities that need the funding the most are being denied.
The results are that critical projects have not been completed and that Canadians are left without vital infrastructure to support their needs as the devastating impacts of extreme climate events increase. The costs associated with the climate crisis will continue to rise unless we take a different approach. I suggest the adage that an ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure. This should be a consideration in how projects are selected.
As a country, we need to be prepared for the next devastating flood, drought or wildfire. In B.C., the province I call home, the rivers and lakes are the cornerstone of the local economy, forests, fish, food crops, quality of life and cultural memories, yet watersheds in B.C. and across Canada face increasing pressures as extreme climate events threaten their stability. When a watershed is healthy and maintained, it can minimize climate change risk, support local wildlife populations, provide clean drinking water and increase disaster resiliency.
First nations, local governments and communities are working every day on the front line of the climate crisis with limited resources to keep watersheds healthy and secure. Indigenous and western science confirms that healthy watersheds protect against climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and floods, yet the CIB is not supporting them on this natural infrastructure. Healthy watersheds serve as natural defences against climate crisis. Wetlands act as natural sponges to purify water. Stream banks filter polluted runoff and provide shelter for salmon. Mature forests retain water and release it when needed most.
This is low-cost, climate-resilient, natural infrastructure that the government is ignoring. We need bold federal leadership and investment in natural infrastructure to address the climate crisis in B.C. and across Canada. The watershed sector in B.C. is a major employer and economic driver, generating over 47,000 indirect and direct jobs, and contributing $5 billion to the GDP.
The recent investment of $100 million by the B.C. NDP government in the co-developed B.C. watershed security fund with the First Nations Water Caucus is an important start, but the federal government needs to be at the table with a federal investment.
We are seeing the successes that can happen when governments properly invest in their communities. When projects are completed, funding is transparent and communities can plan for changes, addressing immediate needs for their communities to grow and flourish.
The NDP supports the findings and recommendations of the majority of this report concurred in today, which details in length the failure of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. As I have said, if the government stays on the same path and continues with this bank, it is time to change its mandate to make the CIB a public bank to serve the public good.
Right now, it could invest in the B.C. watershed security fund; give indigenous, provincial and municipal governments the resources they need for better planning and decision-making; and invest in natural infrastructure to fix the water and housing deficit in our country.
:
Mr. Speaker, I am very disappointed that Conservatives did not support my bill, Bill , which sought to transform the Infrastructure Bank in such a way that it could make a difference in the lives of Canadians, when it comes to the major infrastructure needs in our communities.
It is not a bad thing to have a Crown corporation that is committed to building desperately needed infrastructure in our country, particularly as we face the climate crisis. We know that our infrastructure needs are significant on various fronts, but we also know that we are particularly deficient when it comes to climate-resilient infrastructure and ensuring our communities have the kind of infrastructure they need to face the climate crisis.
I want to acknowledge that the Bloc supported our bill at second reading, and I am thankful for that support, as well as that of the Green MPs.
The reality is that, in ditching Bill , Canada missed an opportunity to transform a Crown corporation, an infrastructure bank, in such a way that it could meet the needs of our communities.
My bill was rooted in the experience of communities like the ones I represent, communities that are on the front lines of the climate crisis and are facing record wildfires and flooding. Communities such as the first nations on the east side of Lake Winnipeg do not have all-weather road access. They have to rely on ice roads for shorter periods of time to access medical services, shop more affordably and bring in the materials they need to build the homes they desperately require and other necessary infrastructure. I have heard time and again from first nations and northern leaders. As a northerner myself, it is clear to me that the infrastructure gap in regions like ours is only getting worse.
In talking about Bill , I heard stories from first nations. One first nation was refused funding to upgrade a community home that was in desperate need of fixing because it could not show Canada's Infrastructure Bank how it was profitable. A northern community that was trying to switch from diesel fuel was told to apply for solar panel funding in the middle of winter. There are serious concerns from indigenous leaders that Indigenous Services Canada may help out once things are really and truly broken, but not a moment before.
Prior to Bill coming to the House at second reading, I acknowledged at the time that communities in my riding were facing immense challenges, as communities were becoming isolated with the melting of the ice roads. One of the projects we talked about needing investment was an all-weather road on the east side of Lake Winnipeg, connecting a dozen first nations that right now are becoming increasingly isolated as a result of the impacts of the climate crises.
We also talked about the transfer from diesel reliance to more sustainable forms of energy. Four of the communities I represent in the far north of northern Manitoba still depend on diesel fuel. We know that many communities in Nunavut and the Northwest Territories are in the same boat. This is unnecessary, given our ability to invest in sustainable energy. That requires government involvement, and the Canada Infrastructure Bank would be well placed to be involved in this kind of work.
As the climate crisis becomes more serious, it is clear that our infrastructure is not up to snuff. It is clear that our communities desperately need a partner in the federal government to invest in the infrastructure we need. Currently, we know that Indigenous Services Canada is not meeting the needs, by a longshot, of indigenous communities when it comes to infrastructure. The housing crisis in communities, for example, is acute. There is a need for critical infrastructure, whether it is health centres, or water and sewer, or roads in the communities or roads connecting communities that currently do not exist.
Indigenous Services Canada is not meeting the needs of indigenous communities. The Canada Infrastructure Bank could play that kind of role. It is not playing that role right now.
Since Bill , we have noticed that the Canada Infrastructure Bank has paid greater attention to the needs of northern and even indigenous communities. I want to acknowledge the work being done on the airport here in Thompson and the Canada Infrastructure Bank's involvement there. I also want to acknowledge the work of the Keewatin Tribal Council in pushing the visionary Pusiko development and hope that the infrastructure bank will be a willing partner in terms of investing in this kind of legacy project.
However, I am deeply disappointed that we are still not seeing the kind of significant investment in northern and indigenous communities or communities across the country, underscoring the work of the transport committee. What is the point of an infrastructure bank that is not making a difference to communities? On that, I want to end by saying that many of us are in Parliament because we want to better the lives of our constituents, people across our country and people around the world.
To that end, I would like to finish my speech by stating clearly that Canada must call for a ceasefire now in Israel and Gaza. Canada must be a voice for peace and justice. As the representative of UNRWA said, “History will ask why the world did not have the courage to act decisively and stop this hell on Earth.”
:
Mr. Speaker, I will not be surprised that the Conservatives are going to try to interrupt my speech continually, because the facts matter and they do not want to be confused by them. They do not want Canadians to actually realize that their record on infrastructure is abysmal, so I am sure they are going to keep interrupting. That actually further proves my point that this strategic goal to block legislation dealing with national security is reckless.
They are reckless when it comes to national security, and then they choose a topic where their record is also reckless and abysmal. Of course they are going to keep interrupting, because their feelings are going to be hurt and they are probably embarrassed. They are probably going back to their House leader's team and asking why they did this today. They will ask why they chose this topic; it was so terrible, because the Liberal members were able to point out their record.
I am going to persist and continue to highlight to Canadians the recklessness of Conservative math.
Let us get back to that. The Conservatives had 10 years. How many projects did P3 Canada work on? It worked on 25 projects, with $1.3 billion. Let us compare that to just under five years with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, with 48 projects.
By the way, let me go back to that $1.3 billion that the Conservatives invested in 10 years. It was all taxpayer-funded money, all from Canadians. The Canada Infrastructure Bank, in under five years, had 48 projects and $10 billion of investment from the government. Do we know what that turned into? It turned into a $28-billion investment.
We heard at committee that investments such as this are transformational. In fact, I want to quote something we heard from a witness we had at committee. She spoke about this on her own podcast, called The Raitt Stuff, on “The Infrastructure Deficit - the role of the Canada Infrastructure Bank”.
This was on January 30. Who said this? It was the Hon. Lisa Raitt, a former Conservative minister. She was talking about the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and she said:
...unfortunately, [the bank] has been the topic of a lot of political discussion in the past number of years. It was not supported by the Conservative Party at various times in the last Parliament and in this Parliament as well. However, you’re doing a lot of work, you’re getting projects done and you are, I think, filling a need that has been shown to be necessary in order to get projects going here in Canada. So tell me what is going on in 2023 for the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the projects that you’re going to be looking at?
Conservative former ministers do not even support the Conservative position on this. As most Canadians know, Conservative math just does not add up. They are reckless. They spent more taxpayer money to get fewer projects done in double the amount of time. That is Conservative math for us.
I am going to talk about some of these projects that I have heard members here today refer to as “slush funds”. I find that pretty interesting. They said that only Liberal insiders are getting rich from the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
I want to speak about a project in Alberta: the Arrow Technology Group, an $8.1-million investment. This is building broadband in underserviced communities, including 20 indigenous and four rural communities.
Are the Conservatives suggesting that these underserviced indigenous communities are rich Liberal insiders benefiting from this bank, or is it that they just cannot wrap their heads around how to actually build infrastructure that matters? It matters for Canadians, indigenous communities and rural communities. It ensures that they are connected so that they have the ability to stay connected with loved ones and to create economic prosperity in these communities.
The fact that the Conservatives would insult indigenous and rural communities in Alberta by calling this, somehow, a slush fund is deplorable.
Let us also talk about Saskatoon and the $27.3 million to the English River First Nation for waste water treatment. This will be the first indigenous-owned waste water treatment plant. Is that more Liberal insiders getting rich, or is it real investment for indigenous communities so they have economic development in their communities and can ensure clean water?
The development of waste water treatment plants allows for economic development and growth in Saskatoon. Are the Conservatives suggesting that the jobs created from this infrastructure investment should be lost and that those families should be sent pink slips because Conservatives want to cancel this project? There are shovels in the ground. There are jobs in communities happening right now. Conservatives would see those employees fired and those shovels put away. It is completely reckless to destroy local economies and prevent local families from being able to provide for themselves because of Conservative ideology. The Conservatives do not believe that they should help build up Canada; they only want to tear it down.
Let us talk about the—
:
Mr. Speaker, I feel for you, but I can imagine right now that behind the scenes here, there are Conservative staffers texting and furiously saying, “Interrupt her speech, ruin those clips and do not let her keep going”, even though that is precisely why the Conservatives do not even interrupt with actual procedural issues and instead it is just debate. I laugh, because it is laughable, at the fact that the Conservatives would actually block the ability for legislation that takes into account national security issues to be modernized and that the Conservatives would choose a topic on which their record is so terrible. Therefore, I feel sorry for the staffers on the Conservative side today, furiously typing, like in that cat GIF that says, “Please interrupt her.” Canadians are going to be made aware of the Conservatives' terrible record on infrastructure.
I cannot help but take immense joy in being able to talk about this topic today, because we are able to talk about very real projects like the ones I have just mentioned. However, I am going to talk about another project that the Conservatives, if they had their way, would see cancelled. It is another Alberta project, one that was for a rail system to go from the Calgary airport to Banff National Park. What would this do? This would build enormous tourism opportunities for the community. How would Conservative members representing some of these ridings go to their communities and say that Conservatives would like to cancel the infrastructure that we are going to build that is going to help support tourism in their community, help create jobs and help create economic development in such a crucial area in their community? Who knows why? They do not really have a plan; it is just whatever reckless policies they come up with, and they do not think about the very real impacts.
I have also heard comments from members opposite saying there is no transparency and they do not know where the money is going for the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I have a quick tip: There is an entire website for the Canada Infrastructure Bank that details these projects. It even has photos, so if members opposite do not want to read the text, there are photos of the construction in progress and of the jobs being created, to show the very real impacts this program is having across the country.
In addition to this, there were numerous testimonies, including by a former Conservative member who is now the mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown. He talks about the investments for buses in his community. In fact, it was a $400-million investment for 450 zero-emission buses. The mayor of Brampton said that this would not be possible without the Canada Infrastructure Bank. This was a game-changer and is going to help the residents of Brampton and the city reach their 80% GHG emissions reduction goals by 2050, which I believe is their timeline.
I want to know why Conservatives do not support municipalities when they are trying to address the challenges of climate change, when they want to deliver for their communities on things like reliable clean transit, and when municipalities want to create clean air for their residents. Why do Conservatives oppose that?
I know I am running out of time, which will be a great relief for the Conservatives and their staffers who are frantically trying to find points of order so Canadians do not have to hear the facts about how reckless the Conservatives are, how unserious they are when it comes to national security and how their record on infrastructure is actually kind of embarrassing. Why would they choose this topic, given their history?
The last point I want to talk about is the overall policies around the Canada Infrastructure Bank and why it exists. These projects are some of the hardest ones to get shovels in the ground for. This is not to replace traditional infrastructure programming. There is a role for both.
These projects require enormous investment and sometimes expertise that smaller rural communities may not have access to. They might be some of the hardest to actually get off the ground, so there is a role for both, but if the Canada Infrastructure Bank were cancelled, like the Conservatives are suggesting, it would mean broadband being ripped out of the ground, jobs lost and individuals fired. The Conservatives laugh at the idea of people being fired, because of their ideology when it comes to infrastructure, and the ideology they have is that they think people who pay property taxes should pay for all this infrastructure. They think families in smaller communities should bear the cost of this major infrastructure that has benefits to all Canadians.
We think Canada has a role to play in transformational infrastructure, and we think building infrastructure across this country creates good-paying jobs, economic opportunities, indigenous-owned opportunities and an ability to invest in clean projects that are going to transform our GHG emission reduction targets. It is shameful and it is reckless, but it is no surprise, with how terrible their record is, that the Conservatives are completely out of touch when it comes to the needs of Canadians. Canadians who pay property tax do not think municipalities should have to bear the brunt of all of this infrastructure, because the Government of Canada, the private sector and others have a role to play in building infrastructure right across this country.
Conservatives do not really have the innovative thought process to move forward on projects that actually matter and to get difficult projects built, because all they care about is flashy slogans. I think that today, the Conservatives are going to be really rethinking some of their strategy and will be having to pivot, but I look forward to talking about our infrastructure record time and time again, because when we compare it to that of the reckless Conservatives, we win every single time.
:
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for .
The Liberal government has created a series of complicated and inefficient infrastructure programs that have regularly failed to deliver results and get money out the door. The Canada Infrastructure Bank, the government's flagship policy, is no exception to this fact. It has been an immense failure.
The Infrastructure Bank has spent millions on overhead, high-priced consultants, CEO payouts, bonuses and corporate welfare while failing to get critical infrastructure built as part of its mandate. It is debatable whether the bank has built even one infrastructure project. In fact, last year, the bank spent twice as much money on salaries and bonuses than it paid in infrastructure. It also spent almost $1 million on consulting and legal fees for an electricity project that never got off the ground.
The mandate of the bank is essentially to attract private sector investment for low-cost loans and to reduce the risk in order to get infrastructure built. However, the government's bank has turned into a form of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare. The bank repeatedly puts taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars by subsidizing multi-billion dollar corporations, handing them low-cost interest rate loans at a much lower rate than what Canadians can go to the bank and get for themselves.
It is frankly perverse that while Canadians are suffering with almost double-digit interest rates for their mortgages, while Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, while Canadians are rationing their children's baby formula and while Canadians are worried about whether they will be able to heat their homes and fill their gas tanks to go to work, we are being so careless with the taxpayer-funded loans that the bank gives out. While Canadians fear they will not be able to make their mortgage payments, and the average Canadian has these real fears, they are being asked simultaneously to subsidize billion-dollar companies to build projects that are not even successful, are often not needed and could be built better by the private sector.
The bank was given a budget of $35 billion courtesy of taxpayers six years ago. The Liberals promised that taxpayers would see a return on investment of four times from private sector investors. They even anticipated that the investments from municipalities and provinces would yield an 11 times multiplier. However, that was six years ago and that has not happened. Private investment has not even been returned at a 1:1 ratio from the bank.
The Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities determined that the Infrastructure Bank was not fixable. It needed to be abolished. The sole recommendation in its report was that the bank be abolished. The committee's recommendation was based on the testimony given by stakeholders involved in the infrastructure projects across this entire country. Witnesses highlighted that the bank was inefficient, lacked transparency and was unable to secure the private investments it promised it would secure.
We are at a time of 40-year high inflation, when Canadians are struggling with the cost of home heating, groceries, food and daily living expenses. They cannot even afford their mortgage payments anymore because of the government's hefty deficit spending, which has driven up interest rates.
Canadians cannot afford to continue to subsidize the government's bad investment. Canadians can no longer afford to foot the bill for this bank that cannot even deliver one single infrastructure project to Canadians. Conservatives will create a winnable process that gets infrastructure built and develops communities without wasting taxpayer dollars.
The bank's executives each gave themselves bonuses last year, big bonuses, in fact. The Canada Infrastructure Bank paid $7.7 million in bonuses to every single one of its executives for getting zero projects done. They got bonuses for not producing, million-dollar bonuses for not producing. Speaking of efficiency, that is some level of incompetence.
In fiscal year 2021-22, the bank also spent twice as much money on bonuses and salaries as it did on projects. This bank is here to finance executives and elites while Canadians are suffering. It makes no sense. At the same time, infrastructure project spending went down by more than half of the previous year and spending on salaries went up by 35%.
Speaking of interest rates, it is really ironic that it is because of the government's failed economic policies and irresponsible spending that the bank's projects have failed. An example of this is the Lake Erie connector project. The bank actually invested $655 million in a $1.7-billion project to build a water electricity cable that is now dead in the water due to financial volatility and inflation. That $655 million was promised to a multi-billion dollar company, Fortis Inc., for an electricity project that ironically failed due to inflation. That inflation was caused by the Liberal government's overspending and reckless spending. A local press release at the time stated:
“ITC made the decision to suspend the project after determining there is not a viable path to achieve successful negotiations and other requirements within the required project schedule. External conditions – including rising inflation, interest rates, and fluctuations in the U.S.-to-Canadian foreign exchange rate – would prevent the company from coming to a customer agreement that would sufficiently capture both the benefits and the costs of the project,” an ITC spokesperson said in a prepared media statement. “As a result, the company believes suspending the project is in the best interest of stakeholders.”
The project failed due to interest rates.
One and a half years ago, the Liberals were gushing about their new partnership with Fortis, a private company that rakes in billions of dollars in revenue every year, promising tons of low-carbon energy, billions in GDP and hundreds of Canadian jobs. Where are those billions? Where are those projects? They never materialized.
Conservatives warned from the beginning that this was a risky and inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars, and we were ignored. We found out later that the bank wasted almost one million taxpayer dollars on consulting and legal fees for an electricity project that never got off the ground. The Lake Erie connector project demonstrates why this bank is an expensive failure. They are spending millions and they cannot get a single project built. At a time when Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, when almost two million Canadians every month are visiting a food bank, the government keeps wasting taxpayer dollars.
In closing, I just want to highlight that the Fortis project was not transparent. We also witnessed very recently the situation at the Fairmont where the bank was—
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak about the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At the outset, it is important to reflect upon how this bank got started and what promises were made when it was put together.
Thirty-five billion dollars that had been earmarked for infrastructure in municipalities was taken back by the federal government to create this bank. This is money that municipalities needed to build their roads and sewers and upgrade their bridges and everything else. The government took that money and put it in this Infrastructure Bank. The story at the time was that the government was going to attract private investors and was going to leverage taxpayer money probably 11 times.
Here we are now, seven years later. I am sure members thought I was going to say “after eight long years”, but from 2016 to 2023, it is seven years. No projects have been built, and there have been lots of comments about the projects that are on the way to being built. However, as an engineer who worked in building and construction, I would say that if I had been given $35 billion seven years ago, I certainly would have built something by now, instead of just paying large salaries to executives, as we heard my colleague talk about.
In comparison, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper had multiple kinds of infrastructure funds. They spent $53 billion and did 43,000 infrastructure projects in 10 years. Compare that to seven years and zero projects completed, or compare it to some of the other infrastructure projects taken over by the Liberal government.
The Liberals took a pipeline that Kinder Morgan was going to build for $4.5 billion, paid $7 billion for it, and now it has cost $30 billion and it is not finished yet. That is the reason the committee members, when they talked about the Infrastructure Bank, listened to witnesses who were involved in it and invited the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and at the end of the day, the committee had one recommendation. That recommendation was to abolish the bank, because it clearly was not coming anywhere near achieving the goals.
With respect to the money leveraging that was supposed to happen, we can go to the government web page. The government started with $35 billion and now we see that it is $38 billion. The $3 billion extra that came as this great leveraged money is really, over that period of time, a 1.7% increase. It would have been better to put the money in the bank and invest it. The government would have made more money that it has leveraged in this existing Infrastructure Bank.
If we listen to the people who are talking about the good things the Infrastructure Bank could do, it is not that Canada does not have a need for infrastructure. We do not build anything. Under the Liberal government, 18 LNG facilities were cancelled.
Let us talk about broadband. Broadband is something everyone needs. The government has been repeatedly called on to increase the amount of broadband, but again, zero projects have come out of this particular fund.
We need nuclear facilities. We know that to meet the existing electrical demands and to grow, we do not have enough electricity in the grid, and we do not have enough infrastructure in the grid. In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton, we are having a number of new plants built, but we do not have enough electricity or infrastructure there. These are projects that Canada needs to build as a nation.
We hear demands from other places across the country where they need rail infrastructure, places that need airport infrastructure and of course there is the need for pipelines to get our products to one coast or the other.
I am not here to say that we do not need infrastructure. I am just saying the government does not seem to be able to build anything.
We have had much discussion in the House of Commons about the housing crisis in this country, that we have the most land but we have built the fewest houses. In fact, the Liberal government built the same number of houses that were built in 1972, this after recognizing that we are five and a half million spaces short. One would think that if they do not know what to do with the $35 billion in the Infrastructure Bank and there is a huge housing crisis in the country, maybe that is a place to start to funnel that money to municipalities that have plans.
My riding of Sarnia—Lambton has a great plan. It has put $38 million over 10 years into affordable housing and $40 million into maintaining and upgrading existing housing. It also has five projects over five years that will create 2,000 spaces. We are trying to close an affordable housing gap of about 6,500.
Many municipalities have plans, and their plans are different. They could use this money back that is in the Infrastructure Bank, which is busy paying off bonuses to executives and not finishing projects. That is something that should be considered.
We also have a lot of infrastructure needs related to climate change. Shoreline erosion is the first one I would raise. In my riding, we need $150 million to address the shoreline erosion. The member for was talking to me about the one way of transiting to access the land, which is being eroded, and it would cut off the Atlantic provinces if it were to collapse. It really needs work.
There are needs for infrastructure. We should not be giving all of our money away to build infrastructure in other places, such as to the Asian infrastructure bank, which the Liberals gave $250 million to in order to build pipelines. They are building the piplelines they will not build here in other places.
I always try to bring some positive ideas when I speak in the House. One of the ideas the Liberals might want to try is something being done in my riding, where postwar houses were built structurally to take another level on top. Private mortgagers are giving mortgages to first-time homebuyers to redo the house with an apartment above and an apartment below. This would support the mortgage and triple the amount of housing. Something like that would be a great thing to do with the amount of money that was put in the Infrastructure Bank. Instead, it is a failed initiative.
The one recommendation from committee was to abolish the bank, and I support that.