Finance Committee on Feb. 12th, 2026

[Ehren Cory]

The concept of an infrastructure bank in general is interesting. To your point about controls, I'll let Mr. Duguay speak to that in a moment.

To be clear, an infrastructure bank is a blended finance tool that helps support infrastructure projects. To the member's point.... He has an advantage, having been the parliamentary secretary. I know he knows this space very well.

It's not only the U.K. You can look at Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Australia, Singapore, Scotland and individual states in the U.S. There are many that have adopted some version of a model where a public institution like the CIB is making investments, in risk-sharing ways, to help spur more infrastructure investment, blending public and private. This idea is not new. It's not Canadian only.

When we look around the world, the Infrastructure Bank is alongside peers such as the U.K., the KfW in Germany and the Nordic bank. They are leaders in this area. We are far from alone.

In terms of the controls that we put in place, I'll let Mr. Duguay speak to how they compare to those in other jurisdictions.

[Frédéric Duguay]

As Mr. Cory said, we benchmark our practices with, as I said earlier, comparable organizations in the public sector not just in Canada but also internationally.

An example of that is the work we do around transparency with respect to having a consistent process on the disclosure of projects in which we make investments. Mr. Cory mentioned that we've reached financial close on 108 projects. You can go on our website and see detailed disclosure. That is consistent across all projects with respect to the CIB investment amount, the project description and other information on the project, including its impacts.

As Mr. Cory said, this aligns with the best practices adopted, for example, by the Nordic Investment Bank and the European Investment Bank.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Duguay. We'll have to conclude there.

We will conclude this hour with Mr. Garon.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Cory, Bill C‑15 will increase the Canada Infrastructure Bank's capital from $35 billion to $45 billion of public money.

Does that correspond to a request made by the Canada Infrastructure Bank, or did the government simply put it in the budget and, when it was tabled, you had a good day, smiled and popped a bottle of champagne?

Did this come from you?

[Ehren Cory]

Madam Chair, there's no champagne in our workplace, but I will say that we have been providing ongoing visibility regarding our pipeline of future investments. As I said, we have $18 billion closed. We have another $10 billion under term.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

My question is this: Did you ask the government, yes or no?

[Ehren Cory]

Madam Chair, my answer is that we've been providing forecasts to the government of what our upcoming set of investments are and when the $35 billion will be fully committed.

Given the government's focus on major projects—

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

That's fine, Mr. Cory. You asked for it. Excellent.

The government wants to make investments to increase housing construction. It created Build Canada Homes, and we don't really know how it will operate.

What role could the Canada Infrastructure Bank play in this type of project?

Are you going to work with Build Canada Homes? Will you be a partner?

When are you going to join the dance?

We have 45 seconds left.

[Ehren Cory]

Madam Chair, I'll go quickly.

Yes, one of our areas of investment is in what we call housing-enabling infrastructure. That means water and waste-water systems, roads, the transit that allows for more housing, district energy and all the infrastructure that goes around housing. We have already been in this space. We've made investments to date that we believe enable the construction start of about 20,000 homes. It's a start.

To answer the question, we plan on working very closely with Build Canada Homes to help accelerate housing development. We see our role as one that works on the enabling infrastructure side, like getting the water pipes and the district energy in the ground, or the transit solutions there, so density can happen and housing can get built.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Garon.

On behalf of the committee, I would like to thank our witnesses from the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

Before we suspend briefly ahead of the final hour of our meeting today, I would like to remind all committee members to keep their phones on silent. It appeared at the beginning of Ms. Cobena's intervention as if she had somebody on the phone. I would ask that we be respectful.

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

It was Siri. It wasn't somebody on the phone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Was it Siri who said that?

[Sandra Cobena, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Yes. I did not have somebody on the phone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Okay.

Anyway, I would ask everyone to be respectful of other members and witnesses at committee and to keep phones on silent. I think it's a privilege for us to have our devices with us.

Thank you very much.

We will suspend briefly as we change over.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Colleagues, we're going to get started.

I would like to welcome our next round of witnesses.

We have National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, from the Assembly of First Nations. She is joined by Bram Lerat, the senior director, as well as Josh Gladstone, the interim director for housing and infrastructure.

Chief Woodhouse, you have five minutes to begin.

Thank you very much.

[National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, National Chief, Assembly of First Nations]

Chair, first of all, I'd like to give my absolute love to the community of Kitigan Zibi, which has lost children to gun violence, as well as to the victims at Tumbler Ridge.

May I ask for a moment of silence for the victims and for everybody to pray in their own way—in a good way? Remember that we have children out there who are affected across this country this week. I ask for that, Chair, in a respectful way.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Yes, absolutely. We will take a moment of silence.

Thank you very much, Chief.

[A moment of silence observed]

Please go ahead.

[National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak]

Well, thank you.

[Witness spoke in Anishinaabemowin as follows:]

Aneen, Boozooh, Apiichi-gii-chii-nay-dum Akiinaah o-gii-bii-izah-iing omahh noo-gomI.

Chi-meegwetch.

[English]

Good morning.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak. I'm the national chief for the Assembly of First Nations.

I'd like to acknowledge that we are gathered here in the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe nation.

Thank you to the committee for the invitation to appear today on this critical study of Bill C-15. We are pleased to support the Assembly of First Nations' technical brief in response to this omnibus budget implementation act, which includes comments on part 5, divisions 1, 3, 5, 32, 33, 35 and 44.

November's federal budget was an opportunity to demonstrate, through deeds—as we recall, at the opening of Parliament, King Charles was here and he said through deeds—that first nations voices matter to this new administration. In the lead-up to the budget, when asked about reports of first nations budget cuts, Canada reassured chiefs that they understood more needed to be done and not less.

Sadly, that promise was broken, and the 2025 federal budget represents a significant setback. When the best we can say is that indigenous services are only being cut by $2 billion to $3 billion, we know there is a problem, especially when provincial transfers across this country for health, education and social services increased by 5%. Those increases never hit first nations. They never think of us.

Instead of closing gaps between first nations and Canadians, this budget makes things more difficult.

To start, we highlight examples of sunsetting programs that are not being renewed in this budget: the Indian residential schools resolution health support program, for one; the Indian day schools health and cultural support program; mental wellness teams and opioid treatment support; also support for vulnerable first nations children accessing Jordan's principle; and over 300 first nations adult education programs.

No matter how you look at it, less is not more.

These sunsetting programs must be extended. First nations have been told to be patient. Another plan has been promised—just trust us. We sit here today, six weeks from the expiration of these vital programs, and we see no plan before us. Now first nations are demanding answers.

Looking at what is being implemented in the omnibus bill, we are equally concerned. As an example, part 5, division 1, raises many red flags. This looks like an end run around statutory safeguards this Parliament established to address concerns about cabinet's unchecked power in Bill C-5. All Canadian laws, including their final content and process of development, must be compliant with section 5 of Canada's United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Despite Canada's claim that free, prior and informed consent were at the heart of that bill, these vital references remain absent in this legislation.

In the case of this bill's Red Tape Reduction Act, we have concluded that excluding first nations from the development of this law is likely to result in strong legal challenges.

Another concern we have with this act is a strong trend towards devolution of federal authority. While first nations are clearly within federal jurisdiction, Canada continues to delegate authority and fiscal responsibility to provinces through program design and funding flows. In addition to eroding federal accountability and fragmenting service delivery, this approach is fundamentally inconsistent with nation-to-nation relationships. Devolution of federal authority goes against the principles of substantive equality and unfairly forces first nations to compete with provinces for health, education and police funding.

Build Canada Homes, for instance, is a recent example of a federal initiative that could deliver for first nations through a distinctions-based funding approach. In light of this, I appreciate Minister Robertson's verbal commitment to set aside a minimum funding of 10% to finally start addressing the first nations housing gap. I do ask the minister to have that in writing with first nations because if not, we get left out.

We also recommend that Bill C-15 go further and mandate distinctions-based program design and first nations participation in governance.

Finally, it is worth noting that November's budget was introduced on the one-year anniversary of the passing of one of our great first nations leaders, Justice Murray Sinclair. After documenting the truths of Canada's horrific residential school system, Justice Sinclair called on us to get up and do the work of reconciliation. He described the mountain we needed to climb. He showed us the path to the top, but he also said that it was up to all of us to do the climbing. That climb rests with all of us now—everyone in this room, on this committee. In Justice Sinclair's name, we must keep imagining what a world looks like where all of us have medicines, food and a safe place to live—not just a few of us, but truly all of us. Budgets are not just accounting exercises—these are lives.

There are important instruments as well for governments to deliver on their obligations to protect the rights of all citizens. We hope that you listen and respond through both words and deeds, as the King said when he opened Parliament. I look forward to seeing him later this year, and I want to tell him that we're working together and finding progress.

We look forward to your questions. Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Chief.

We will now begin with six minutes from Mr. Schmale.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you again, National Chief, for being here and for your testimony today.

National Chief, you talked about investments from ISC into housing, and what we've seen since 2015 is that, yes, the budgets within ISC have gotten bigger. The outcomes, as outlined by many Auditors General reports, show that housing is getting worse in community. The infrastructure, roads, community centres and those types of things are getting worse. We're seeing an increase in crime, mental health issues, etc. We're seeing an increase in funds, but the outcomes are going in the completely opposite direction.

You touched on it a bit in your testimony and in previous testimony before the indigenous and northern affairs committee. The system itself is broken when there's that “Ottawa knows best” attitude, when we continue to have indigenous leaders coming to Ottawa and asking for funds only to get a little bit back, but the bureaucracy seems to be feeding this machine here.

Maybe you can comment on that, and then I'll get to my next series of questions.

[National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak]

I'm going to give that to one of my technicians, but I will say first and foremost that Indian Affairs.... I'm going to call it Indian Affairs, you guys, because Parliament changes that name over and over again. It's now “Indigenous Services”, and that's cutting in by bringing in other groups of people. We need to be focused on first nations in this country. We need to quit funding whatever groups people make up for themselves and focus on first nations people directly.

All of a sudden, the name changes to Indigenous Services Canada. It used to be Indian Affairs. I still call it Indian Affairs, and it needs to get back to that if that's what it was created to do, because we're the only ones put under the Indian Act. Métis aren't and other groups in this country aren't, but first nations are.

There are other groups of people taking from what little pots of money we have, so ISC needs to stop funding groups of people other than first nations out of the limited pots they have. That's the problem.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, ON]

I don't want to lose the momentum that you just mentioned, and I will let your colleague respond.

The previous meeting we just had about an hour ago was talking about Bill S-2, the second-generation cut-off. We have a piece of legislation, Bill C-10, currently going through the legislative process here on the modern treaty commissioner.

With both pieces of legislation, it seems that, when it comes to the modern treaty commissioner specifically, the government could live up to its word when signed, either modern treaty or otherwise. This has been hundreds of years; this isn't recent. It seems that the departments just don't want to. They could. We saw during COVID how fast a department can move when they really want to. On the second-generation cut-off, the department could wrap up consultation or speed up consultation and move that forward, but there just seems to be no follow-through here.

[National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak]

I do look forward, for the first time in many, many years, to finally having a first ministers meeting with the provinces, the feds and the first nations. I'm thankful to the Prime Minister and the premiers for that commitment, but this is the first time ever. Isn't that terrible?

We end up with jurisdictional issues, but when it comes to funding itself, we have to make sure that we're focused on first nations and not on all these other groups of people who are eating up the pots that are meant for first nations people.

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes, ON]

There is a growing bureaucracy here in Ottawa, and a department like the ISC doubling in size, and I'm not even bringing in Crown-Indigenous Relations either. It has doubled in size and in the number of bureaucrats.

The number of reporting forms for every single program you think would be standardized, but they're all different. There are efficiencies here where we could see maybe a reduced bureaucracy or more direct funding to nations themselves to let them decide their own path at their own speed, but it seems that we're just feeding this machine here, this cotton candy machine here in Ottawa, where the money just goes around and around, and what comes out is not what should be.