Transport committee  I don't know. I have no idea what that was. That wasn't the point of it. It was just about getting support. No cost-benefit analysis was done. It was—

Transport committee  You should ask Mr. Pickersgill or Rob Coulter. I have no idea what that is. It wasn't relevant.

Transport committee  I think the private sector does bear the risk by putting their capital into it. We need to find projects where they're willing to do it. I think it leads to a better outcome. Having the private sector in there I think, in fact, makes a project more viable. It requires that the analysis being done stands up to people being able to put money into it.

Transport committee  There are a couple of things I have to say. If you're wondering what the role was, it was to provide data at the request of growth council members. They weren't providing recommendations at all. They weren't in the room when any of the deliberations were occurring. It was agreed to up front with the Deputy Minister and Minister of Finance that we were doing this, so it was all clear—

Transport committee  I'm sorry. Can you say that again? I don't understand your question.

Transport committee  Sure, I'd be happy to do that.

Transport committee  I think public money is very important to help provide the security, if you will, or the baseline so that it's going to be long term and it's going to work. Bruno and Janice may correct me, by the way. It's to provide the baseload to incentivize, then, the private sector to come in and say, “Okay, this is going to have the time frame we're looking at and we can actually see returns from this.”

Transport committee  That's very kind. Thank you. I would just say, number one, that I'm very proud that an infrastructure bank was created and moved forward. I think it's going to help Canadians move things forward. The second point is that I believe I was very much operating in the spirit of trying to give something back to the country.

Transport committee  As I said before, I'm very proud of the work that McKinsey did. I think you heard from Janice about the impact. You should ask them about whether there was an impact or not in terms of the work. I think McKinsey followed very ethical processes. As I said, I'm proud to have done the work with the growth council.

Transport committee  I'll say a couple of things about that. First of all, I've listened to what Mr. Palter said, who I think was before the committee. He said that McKinsey did “no opioid sales and marketing work in Canada”. I think it's important to reflect that.

Transport committee  As I said before to your question, I have no idea how McKinsey was involved or not, in that I received a request from Michael Sabia and his office to speak to him, and that's what I did. I had only 30 minutes, because I had a dinner that I had to finish. I joined late. I don't know how long that had been going on for.

Transport committee  You made a number of points on this. Number one, the Infrastructure Bank was part of Liberal Party policy in 2015. To suggest that McKinsey has come up with that is false. Number two, it was the growth council that was actually coming up with recommendations, not McKinsey. I mention again that the lead people on that were Michael Sabia and Mark Wiseman.

Transport committee  Can I answer your question?

Transport committee  Thank you for your question. Number one, what I'm saying is the idea of an infrastructure-type bank was already a part of the Liberal Party policy. Number two, the growth council, in looking at many other different infrastructure banks and approaches around the world, is the one that came up with the recommendations, again led by a subteam, which was Michael Sabia, Mark Wiseman and Ken Courtis.

Transport committee  As I mentioned in the opening statement, there was a range of different areas that we were looking at to try to get more growth in the Canadian economy and to improve median incomes. That was the target we were aiming towards for 2030, and infrastructure was a core element of it.