Finance Committee on June 4th, 2026

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

I have question for you—

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I think they need to examine this exchange to understand whether you are against the Prime Minister travelling to secure investments for Canadians.

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

I have a question for you, if I may.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Are they? Are you against that? It's a very simple question.

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

I am asking the questions.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I see. Well, I think Canadians would be interested in your answer, though.

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

If I may, Minister—

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Are you against the Prime Minister—

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Minister, let the member ask the question.

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

He's incredibly disrespectful.

The Prime Minister is quite wealthy—so much so that he refused to divest his stock portfolios when he became Prime Minister. Many previous prime ministers did. Could he at least put these lavish expenses for his expensive dinners on his own credit card?

You are asking Canadians to live with less. Every family is tightening its belt, except for the Prime Minister and everyone around him.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

The Prime Minister was born the son of two teachers in a small place in the Northwest Territories and has demonstrated repeatedly his willingness to forgo a career in the private sector to serve Canadians. He did so in the public service. He did so at the Bank of Canada. He has had other public service opportunities. I know I am grateful that he once again chose public service as distinct from his other career opportunities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Minister. We're going to have to conclude it there.

We will continue now with Mr. Sawatzky for five minutes.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you, Minister, for being here today.

I'm really excited to see our government's investments into trade infrastructure. In my own riding of New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, I have a lot of trade routes that go through there. There are a lot of rail corridors and Highway 1.

I am just wondering if you could speak to the investment we're making in our rail, especially at a time when we're looking at diversifying our international trade market.

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Sawatzky. That is such a great question.

We ask a lot of the Lower Mainland. A lot of people live there. It's a very dense urban area. It serves such an important strategic purpose as a logistics hub for all Canadians. At the same time, people living in the Lower Mainland benefit from the economic activity and the jobs that this entails. We need to continue to strive to get that balance right for the quality of life of people living in your riding and in developing the opportunities and the logistical essentials that Canadians rely on.

Rail in the Lower Mainland is a bit like a plate of spaghetti. It has a lot of bottlenecks and single points of failure—things that we need to work on, you and I together, to make sure we get more fluid transportation and expand our ability to serve Canadians. Of course, we are always very mindful of the needs of the residents of the Lower Mainland. You can expect to see continued investment in small and large projects in our transport sector in the Lower Mainland. These are job-creating opportunities but also projects that need to be done with great sensitivity so that we ensure that folks continue to enjoy the incredible part of the world you live in.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. When I heard the announcement of $33 million into the national trade corridors fund for projects in Alberta and British Columbia, I was very excited. It will definitely be benefiting my region.

Coming to metro Vancouver's transit infrastructure, the federal government was kicking in, I believe, about $663 million in funding. We had the Mark V SkyTrain cars come in. Could you speak to the importance of having an effective public transport system, especially as densification increases?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I worked with Prime Minister Martin—no relation to our new colleague—as the Canada Line was being developed. I've followed with great interest the rise in sophistication of public transit in the Lower Mainland, in Vancouver and in surrounding cities. I am well aware that public transportation will probably always be an issue. Governments struggle to keep up with demand and with capacity constraints.

I'm very glad, as you are, obviously, that we are spending this very substantial sum of money on improvements to the system, on new buses and on electrifying and making cleaner our public transit. I've appreciated your advocacy on this to bring the very real perspective of the needs of folks perhaps outside of the dense city core who really rely on public transportation and who require us to continue investing in it. Thank you for that.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you.

We've talked about rail. We've talked about public transit. In terms of marine transportation, of course, the Fraser River comes through my riding. In our last few moments here, could you speak to anything the government is doing to help marine transportation?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

It's no secret that the port of Vancouver is our number one port by a long margin. We'll run up against capacity constraints for bulk materials and particularly for container traffic. This is, again, a service that the people of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia provide to all the country. It is our principal port of entry, but it's also a principal economic engine.

We will continue to work with the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority on those capacity constraints and on projects that relieve those capacity constraints. We will do that while respecting the environment, while respecting fragile ecosystems and while respecting killer whales, notably.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Minister. That concludes the time we have.

[Jake Sawatzky, Liberal, New Westminster—Burnaby—Maillardville, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Karina Gould]

Thank you, Mr. Sawatzky.

We will conclude this meeting with Mrs. DeBellefeuille.

Mrs. DeBellefeuille, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

I'm surprised. I didn't think I'd get a second turn. At my usual committee, I don't get a second round of questions. The Standing Committee on Finance is very generous.

Minister, I'm going to ask you a question inspired by my hope that Quebec will one day become a country.

What would you say if the Government of Quebec were to partner with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec to purchase and privatize and airport?

Would you be open to considering such an offer?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

I will fight for Canada and against a breakup of Canada until my dying day, so answering a hypothetical question gives me pause.

I can only say that the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is a very experienced, very savvy investor. I expect that the initiative we've just embarked upon would be of interest to it.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry—Soulanges—Huntingdon, QC]

My next question is about competition between private investors that will invest in high-speed rail and those you will attract to privatize airports.

Won't there be conflict between investors? Aren't you creating competition between two modes of transportation?

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Gatineau, QC]

Not at all. I believe that one plus one equals much more than two.

Getting back to the answer I gave Mr. Lavoie about intermodality, I believe that transportation development drives economic development.

Furthermore, I believe these savvy investors conduct very sophisticated analyses of the situation. The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is actually part of the Cadence consortium. It is one of the partners in the high-speed rail development project.

In fact, the information about economic development and the fact that transportation development stimulates employment comes from them. I, for one, firmly believe in this.