Thank you, Madam Chair; and thank you to all our witnesses for their opening testimony.
I want to talk about the issue of lapsed money. Last month, in his report, the PBO said that federal infrastructure spending over the past year created a maximum of 11,000 new jobs and added 0.1% to Canada's GDP, which falls well short of the government's own projections when it estimated what infrastructure would contribute to the economy and job creation. It's also consistent with the fact that a lot of spending has lapsed and the monies that were committed to have not been spent.
The PBO also highlighted his concern that the money that has lapsed and has been re-profiled is going to be eaten away through inflation over the next decade as inflation starts to tick up and central banks start to tighten. That's the context in which we're here.
I read through some of the Toronto Board of Trade reports in recent years. I noted that you concluded in your most recent report, “Toronto as a Global City: Scorecard on Prosperity”, “Finally, underinvestment in infrastructure, particularly in and around the Toronto region, is a chronic problem for Canada.”
Maybe you could speak a little to this committee about the implications of lapsed funding and the need to address ever-increasing commuting times for the millions of people who live in the GTA, ever-increasing frustration for distribution and logistics companies, ever-increasing frustration for SMEs that are looking to locate in the region, and how this is having a real-life impact on our ability to grow the economy and prosperity.