If you don't mind, I'll read from my notes a little bit just to make sure I get the timeline right.
Asset recycling, in case you're not familiar with it, can basically involve several things. Mainly it refers to disposing of so-called legacy assets in order to raise revenue that's needed for additional infrastructure. That may not be, in and of itself, anything particularly new or unique, but it then tends to take two forms. One applies to Canada more than the other.
One form is just straight-up asset monetization that usually occurs in, say, fiscally distressed circumstances—cities like Chicago or Detroit—where they basically scan their public portfolios and turn things like revenue from public parking meters, public parking lots and that type of thing into streams of investable funds. They then take those lump sum payments that they receive from private investors and try to pay down debt and reclaim some kind of investment-grade credit rating to get a better interest rate.
The form of asset recycling that might apply more readily in Canada is one that it appears the Liberals had looked into and are probably following off the Australian model. Basically, profitable or potentially profitable public sector assets are disposed of to private investors in order to generate the revenue that's needed to fund new P3 infrastructure. In the case of Australia, there's a fiscal carrot provided by the commonwealth or the federal government there. If their states dispose of legacy assets and use that money to develop P3s, the central government, the commonwealth government, will give them 15% on top of that.
In Canada, it looks like in 2016 the federal government hired various bankers, let's say, or...aspects of global finance to look into whether they could or would, or maybe should, engage in asset recycling in terms of privatizing federal port assets and privatizing airports. I don't know exactly what happened to that. You guys would be in a better position than me to figure that out. It does look like that's on hiatus, at least for now. I know there was some dissent, at least within the federal boards that oversee airports. Some were maybe more for this option and some weren't.
In any case, this remains a concern for me, and for Canadians in general, I hope, or I would assume so, because in exchange for lump sum up-front remuneration, it essentially gives up and cedes control over rights and decision-making on such really important assets as ports and airports and those sorts of things. In the case of Chicago and Detroit, it's parking meters and that type of thing.
So it does that, and then it tethers the use of those funds to P3s. It's kind of like a double whammy. The Canada Infrastructure Bank purports that it's evidence-based, and these types of policy manoeuvres aren't necessarily seeking out evidence-based solutions. They kind of start with a presumption, like a solution in search of a problem.
Thank you, Mr. Scheer.