Evidence of meeting #44 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was bank.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Mr. Minister, my priority is to ask questions.
I know that he's the minister and that he gets priority in the House of Commons.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you.
I would like you to tell me about a project that might be appealing to private investors and that could be carried out in a small or medium-sized community anywhere in Canada. Just name one.
You can turn to your officials who are here to support you, because I can imagine that, with all the work that you have, you did not have time to study the various projects in the communities. Please give me one example, not 10 or five, just one. You are saying that billions of dollars are invested in Canada's communities.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Amarjeet Sohi Liberal Edmonton Mill Woods, AB
You can look at the trade and transportation infrastructure that touches on many communities—large, small, and medium-sized—that is not located in one city. It is located interprovincially, so those kinds of projects will qualify for possible infrastructure bank funding. You can look at the transmission infrastructure. That touches on many municipalities in many provinces. There are various ways that we can support projects that benefit entire provinces, including smaller communities.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Alain Rayes Conservative Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you.
Unfortunately, I am not satisfied with the answer that you gave me.
I have another question for you.
Who will be responsible for authorizing those projects through the Canada Infrastructure Bank? Is it the priority of the government or the priority of the board of directors and the managers of the fund? Who will be choosing the projects that the Canada Infrastructure Bank will be funding?
Mr. Campbell, would you like to answer the question?
11:45 a.m.
Executive Director, Canada Infrastructure Bank Transition Office, Office of Infrastructure of Canada
I'd be happy to.
Many of the details pertaining to the governance structure of this entity are yet to be announced. They will be in due course, but I can assure, similar to the question earlier about the financial balance sheet, the entity will adhere to good governance practices and will remain accountable to Parliament. The Government of Canada will be in a position to provide policy direction to the entity. Ultimately, it will be the proponent coming forward, say it's a municipality or a province, that will be the steward of the decision-making about their own asset and how that's treated.
As the minister said earlier, it's an option whether or not to use the services of the bank.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much. I'm sorry, Mr. Rayes, your time is up.
Mr. Badawey.
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Just taking it to the next step with respect to what I asked before, Mr. Minister, what are some of the methods or the mechanisms, the enablers, that you can actually provide for P3s, for private involvement?
Mr. Rayes has mentioned, through his question, what opportunities exist. I know about rail spurs, short lines, marine when it comes to docks, and intermodal facilities when it comes to air, airports, especially regional airports and the possibility of applying for capital work in those airports by the smaller municipalities. What other methods do you find that can actually involve the private sectors to get that fourth level of funding? Right now, we have federal, provincial, and local, but how can you then expand that to the private sector to be involved and to get that fourth level of funding for economically strategic initiatives?
11:45 a.m.
Liberal
Amarjeet Sohi Liberal Edmonton Mill Woods, AB
PPP Canada has managed many projects that have successfully engaged the private sector. One thing that we are unable to do under the PPP Canada arrangement is to take an equity stake in projects. That's why the creation of the bank is necessary, to take it to the next stage where more private sector capital can be mobilized to build more infrastructure that cannot be built in traditional ways or that ties up money from the government that can be used for building more housing, for example, or that could be used for building more shelters for women fleeing domestic violence or building more public transit that is necessary in our communities.
At the end of the day, our government is focused on people. We want to enable people to succeed. We want people to have a quality of life that they can enjoy and they can feel that they are part of the community. Building all types of infrastructure that enables people to succeed both economically and socially is the goal. Whether we do that through private capital or a traditional way of funding projects, we believe that the bank will take us to the next stage and build on the success of P3s.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Vance Badawey Liberal Niagara Centre, ON
This is my last question before I split my time with Mr. Fraser.
Mr. Minister, do you find as well that not only is it an enabler of an economic strategy to create jobs, of sustainability for the municipal sector in terms of catching up on their infrastructure deficit and also getting into smart city infrastructure, but it alleviates the burden on the taxpayer, the property taxpayer, whereby they do not now have to take on a debt for 10 to 20 to 30 years and then pay for it through their property taxes? They do not now have to pay the operating end or capital costs of a project that might run into the millions of dollars and saddle a municipality with debt for many years, and they can actually get the project done.
Do you figure this becomes that enabler?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Amarjeet Sohi Liberal Edmonton Mill Woods, AB
It does free up the capacity of all orders of government—municipal, provincial, and federal—where public dollars can be put toward infrastructure that is critical and that may not be built through private sector involvement.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you very much.
Following up on Mr. Rayes' examples, as I mentioned, I come from a small community as well. My understanding of the infrastructure bank is that it could apply to revenue-generating projects. One of the big issues right now for me at home is the construction of tolled highways or the construction of private-public partnerships for broadband infrastructure, transmission lines, and affordable housing where there's revenue through the form of rent. Is this not the kind of thing that could potentially apply to the infrastructure bank?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Amarjeet Sohi Liberal Edmonton Mill Woods, AB
Broadband infrastructure is one example where we can look at private sector participation that helps rural communities, that helps isolated communities, but assessments will be done on a project-to-project basis.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
I'll ask this just quickly, because I have only about a minute left.
On the smart cities challenge, when the U.S. did a similar exercise, the real benefit in my mind wasn't the fact that Columbus got a $50-million or $60-million bonus at the end, but that 77 cities took part. We have a limited number of big cities in Canada. Will there be a mechanism to help encourage small or medium-sized towns and cities to participate in the challenge in Canada?
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Amarjeet Sohi Liberal Edmonton Mill Woods, AB
Yes. There will not be any limit on participation. Any community can participate. Our goal is to enable communities to use technology and to find innovative ways of maintaining the existing infrastructure and building new infrastructure, and also to not limit the use of smart technologies or a smart way of doing things just to physical infrastructure. We are also interested in social innovation and building strong, inclusive, welcoming communities. The smart cities challenge is going to be much broader than just physical infrastructure.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Thank you, and I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Rayes.
Just for the minister to note, i-Canada has been doing that for many years, and they're really good at it.
I just have one comment and then I'm going to get into something else. You mentioned, Minister—and I'm going to just talk and I don't mean to be critical here, but we're tight for time—equity stakes from P3 Canada projects. You said that all the projects from P3 Canada have equity stakes, and I wonder if you could provide this committee with a list of those assets.
11:50 a.m.
Liberal
Amarjeet Sohi Liberal Edmonton Mill Woods, AB
What I said is that P3 Canada cannot take equity stakes in projects.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Dianne Lynn Watts Conservative South Surrey—White Rock, BC
Oh, I thought you said there were equity stakes.