Finance Committee on April 27th, 2026

[Daniel Dufort]

One of the Liberal members was talking about Caisse de dépôt as maybe being analogous to this new fund. I think it may be closer to Investissement Québec because of some of the permeability to political influence on it. If you were to look at the returns of the Caisse de dépôt, you'd see that you would surely be better off putting your money into an ETF.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Are there many funds that Canadians can put their money into right now that invest in the Canadian economy?

[Gabriel Giguère]

Absolutely.

If I may, I'll quickly come back to the fund issue, which I think is very relevant. The dynamic of this sovereign wealth fund follows Bill C‑15, that is to say it centralizes the authority to approve certain projects that were not working under Bill C‑69. Now they want to create a fund—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Let me continue.

The Canada Infrastructure Bank was set up to invest in infrastructure in Canada. Effectively, it required a bunch of infrastructure funds to return their money to Canadians. It had to change its mandate, at the end of the day, in order to put money out. Is this a waste of resources in our country?

[Gabriel Giguère]

No, I don't think that's a good approach.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much.

If we had those infrastructure funds, would pipelines and other infrastructure have been built in Canada?

[Gabriel Giguère]

Absolutely. The problem here is that Bill C‑69 is basically anti-pipeline.

They want to create a fund, because—

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

The problem isn't the fact that we have these funds. The problem is the fact that we don't have the ability to build.

[Gabriel Giguère]

Absolutely. The problem is that they want to create a fund rather than changing the current deficient regulations.

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

That concludes your time, Mr. McLean.

We'll go to Mr. Turnbull for five minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

All right. That's great.

I have limited time, but I want to correct the record. The Canada Infrastructure Bank has funded 108 projects. A total of $18.1 billion has been invested. The total capital cost is $54.6 billion, which is roughly three times the public investment. It's expected to create 315,000 jobs and $2.3 billion in added GDP impact per year. It also funded over 100 electric buses in my region, which we wouldn't have had otherwise. Its long-term loans at very good rates have helped our region electrify the bus fleet all across the region. I think that's progress.

The Canada Growth Fund has funded 20 major investments, costing $5.14 billion, and 170 others are in the pipeline. There are 50 active opportunities. One that I'm particularly proud of is the new nuclear project at Darlington, which is a $2-billion investment that will create 21,700 jobs, add $38.5 billion to the GDP and provide clean power for 1.2 million homes.

I recognize that the two colleagues on this side don't believe in government intervention, blended finance or the government playing a role in the economy to stimulate growth, build a more resilient and sustainable economy, etc. It's not something you necessarily believe in. I get that you call it industrial policy, or whatever term you want to give it, but for me, these things are working to generate differences and impact in my community, and I'm quite proud of them. I'll leave it at that.

I'm not going to ask you a question, because I already know where you stand.

Ms. Schirle, I want to ask you a question. I found your presentation quite appealing. I thought the three questions you were using to assess government spending were interesting: Is there a market failure? Does the spending reduce friction? What is the size of the benefits that accrue for Canadians? I hope I have summarized them correctly.

I want to ask you about the housing accelerator fund, which is an interesting example. There's no clear jurisdiction for housing. The federal government got out of housing. It devolved housing for a number of years, and then in 2015, we got back into housing because, I would argue, there was definitely a market failure. There was not enough investment. Non-market housing was not being produced at the rate that was needed by the population. There are all kinds of ways to analyze that market failure. Essentially, we did not see that gap closing without significant government intervention. The housing accelerator fund went straight to municipalities, looking at ways they could speed up approvals, but injecting some needed funds to help stimulate that activity.

Can you speak to whether that meets the criteria you mentioned at the beginning?

[Tammy Schirle]

I would tend to pause and ask why the province isn't the one that's most involved in administering this with the municipalities. One of the biggest problems is zoning at the municipality level and getting things moving there. That is where the challenge is.

I'd put more analysis into whether there are better mechanisms to work with the provinces on that.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

For you, it doesn't meet your three criteria. Is that what you're saying?

[Tammy Schirle]

Not necessarily, no. I'd have to think about it more.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay. That's interesting.

What about the recent agreement with the Ontario government, whereby we agreed to take the full 13% off new home purchases, as well as to reduce development charges by 50%? Would you say that's a template, given the fact that the Ontario government signed on to that agreement?

It will knock approximately $200,000 off the purchase of a new home. Would you say that is progress? Does it meet the criteria of your three questions that you were asking at the outset?

[Tammy Schirle]

It helps with pricing in that market. It certainly seems to be popular among people who are analyzing our local markets. Encouraging developers to get moving with some of those plans is certainly important. It's reducing frictions in that market to get some money moving. Yes, this would certainly help.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That's great. Thanks.

Ms. Robson, I'll go to you now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

You have only five seconds left, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you very much.

My time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

We'll turn to Mr. Kelly now for five minutes.

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Crowfoot, AB]

No. It's Ms. Goodridge.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Go ahead, Ms. Goodridge.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here.

Monsieur Dufort, it didn't quite sit well with me that Mr. Turnbull went and attacked you, put a whole bunch of words in your mouth and didn't give you an opportunity to respond. I'm going to give you that opportunity now, should you choose to do so.

[Daniel Dufort]

In fact, when we talk about the notion of economic interventionism, what we see, and what Mr. Turnbull seemed to be pointing out, is its visible aspect. However, French author Frédéric Bastiat also talked about the importance of what we don't see.

Take, for example, all the projects that never see the light of day because the private sector is crowded out due to government spending when too much money has been taxed. What we also don't see are all the projects that never see the light of day because of regulation and don't get a pass under Bill C‑15. Therefore, plenty of projects could get off the ground in Canada, but we're not seeing them nor will we ever see them, because there is too much taxation, too much interventionism and too much regulation.