There are a number of points there for me to unpack that are really worth discussing.
In the first instance, I hope I was clear. It may have been mischaracterized. Cabinet will have appropriate oversight of both the bank and the projects in which it invests. As I said earlier, through that federal-provincial discussion of priority setting, cabinets on both sides will be able to determine which projects are priorities, and the Government of Canada will have an obligation through cabinet to decide whether those projects on the priority list are worth being funded, either through bilateral funding or through the bank.
That public policy determination process will have been made. As I said, every project in the bank's pipeline would already have been through that screening in both orders of government. It will not be a surprise. That means the government and the cabinet will have a say to ensure those projects on the list meet its priorities.
In terms of the second point about the independence of the institution as it pertains to what the function is going to be, once a project is deemed to be something the bank may support, it can go try to find investors. The objective would be as little support as possible provided by the bank and a risk transfer deal that works for both parties to attract as much investment as possible. The bank would be the one in control of structuring that partner agreement, along with the public sponsor of that asset, and it would go out and bid for financial support from the private marketplace, either in debt or equity, to ensure a good dynamic.
The independence and role of the arm's-length entity is merely around making sure they have a good dynamic to structure the projects. They will not be asked to do public policy determination, because a project that is in the public interest will already have been predetermined, either by the government bringing it forward, or by the federal government saying that it's a project that taxpayers are going to fund at 100% and bear all the risk through the normal models. This is the case for all those projects that don't have a revenue-generating model.
However, for those exceptional cases where the governments say that there may be a revenue model that would allow a project to get built without as much government support as would otherwise be there, then it goes through, and the bank uses its tools.
The public interest will be reflected, as it is now, in the legislation. It will be reflected in the corporate plan.
The objective is to have an independent board of directors, representative of Canada, with no government interference on that board, so that you actually have them making sound financial risk, financial modelling, infrastructure, and legal due diligence. That's what we want the board to do. The board presides over the institution and gives direction to the CEO so that they can effectively run the arm's-length crown corporation to execute its mandate, which is the structuring of robust deals and managing that way.
To conclude, we will be reducing some of the overhead and financial costs of the institution by only providing cash to that bank as it needs it and as projects develop. You mentioned $35 billion. The government is being very transparent that it's a $15-billion profile, which it would have otherwise just transferred to other projects. It now wants to use that strategically to absorb some very strategic risk in a project and to ensure that more incremental projects get built than otherwise would. We think, collectively, that's in the public interest.