Finance committee  I was actually referring to the programs, rather than the individual funding envelopes. The first go round primarily focused on social infrastructure, then the financial crisis occurred. The second national infrastructure plan swung quite significantly toward economic infrastruc

Finance committee  I think the scale is equivalent to the boom I was talking about in the late 1940s, early 1950s, and into the 1960s. Yes, absolutely.

Finance committee  The Australian model is fascinating. The federal government removes the tax disincentive associated with selling an asset by a state government, as long as the money is reinvested in new infrastructure or rehabilitation of infrastructure. This is a way to take some of the stock o

Finance committee  Yes, but when we look at it, that is a provincial government recycling its assets, not necessarily its infrastructure assets. The Australian model is quite focused on infrastructure asset recycling.

Finance committee  It could be an electric utility, it could be a toll road, it could be whatever, but the Australian model is quite focused on infrastructure asset recycling. You could choose to broaden it, but again there are issues there. The Australian one appears to have achieved a real consen

Finance committee  I would use the present tense, rather than the past tense. It hasn't happened. It's in the process of happening.

Finance committee  The first part of my response is that the state of public-private partnerships is very healthy in Canada. It is one of the two or three jurisdictions around the globe that are held out as true state-of-the-art jurisdictions. It's characterized by a predictable flow of projects, b

Finance committee  I think it's all three levels. It boils down—and this is entirely consistent with trends around the world—to the problem that the three levels of government, or the two levels of government depending upon where you are, struggle to find the projects they want to invest in and to

Finance committee  Again, there are two parts to it. If you think about infrastructure and the great boom in infrastructure that began in the late 1940s, early 1950s and into the 1960s, all of that infrastructure is now middle-aged.

Finance committee  You didn't have to spend a lot of money. Again, people don't consume a lot when they're young. As things age, they begin to wear out. We are into that stage. Yes, we haven't maintained it so well, and we're now entering that phase in the life of our infrastructure.

Finance committee  The real challenge is to determine when that occurs, and one of the great challenges that municipalities face, provincial governments face, and federal governments face is actually knowing the condition of the assets. One of the things I would urge all of the municipalities prese

Finance committee  There can be. Again, part of this is figuring out what the assets are, where they are, and their condition. They should be known and knowable. We can all make sure we do a better job. The problem with infrastructure assets that are installed is that everything feels good until

Finance committee  I'm not technically competent to say that, but we are entering that phase where expenditures are necessary.

Finance committee  I have spent the last 30 years in infrastructure. I ran the Canadian business for 10 years and today I run KPMG's infrastructure business in the Americas and India.

Finance committee  Thank you. We, in this generation, have been the beneficiaries of the foresight in investment of our parents and grandparents, and I truly hope that as we move forward we are able to give that to our children and grandchildren as well. This is a real challenge in today's environ