Evidence of meeting #21 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was public.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Am I correct in understanding that it's not because there couldn't be projects? It's not that they've built everything that needs building; it's that projects are waiting for approval. Is that kind of—
Chair, National Trade Contractors Coalition of Canada
Approval, financing; there are many reasons, and there are other issues going on.
The supply chain for a lot of different materials and products has been disrupted. We haven't recovered full labour force in construction. We are still below pre-pandemic levels. There are a lot of issues, but not having certainty of work has all sorts of implications for construction in terms of hiring, investing in your own business and the ability to take on work.
When a whole bunch of work comes out all at once and it looks really busy, that's not good either because it's very hard to take on many projects from the start, especially for trade contractors, whom I represent. We're talking mostly about small and medium-sized enterprises. When they start a job, they're in two months of their own money before they get paid, just from the way the contracts roll out, so if you take on too much work, you could damage your cash flow and have a hard time. When you don't have enough work, you're very cautious about adding to it. There are a lot of plans at the federal level—and we appreciate them, obviously—to look at the workforce and develop that workforce, but it needs—
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
I'm conscious of the time that I have.
One of your frustrations that I share is the lack of details on the Infrastructure Bank's website.
Conservative
Andrew Scheer Conservative Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK
Yes. It's good data that makes for good decisions.
I hear officials at the bank, both past and present, talking about this “four times” multiplier, this idea that for every dollar of taxpayers' money that would be put into these projects, it would be unlocking a minimum of four times, and maybe even seven times, the private sector investment.
Of the projects you are able to look at on the bank's website, do you see any evidence of that? Is there any sign that private sector investment houses are pouring in their money?
Chair, National Trade Contractors Coalition of Canada
I couldn't even begin to comment, because all it listed was the financial commitment from the bank, and then there was a memorandum. I went through some of it, but as for seeing that leverage, I didn't see it. The bottom line is that there's only one active project that had any money.... I mean, promises and announcements are all great, but they don't affect my members until they're actually working.
When it's an active project, then there's a benefit. Up until that point, it's a hope and a dream. They've participated in projects. There was a water plant in Mapleton or something. It was supposed to be a $20-million project. That was delayed or or taken off the books. Anything in the planning process is still suspect to becoming an active project....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you, Ms. Skivsky.
Thank you, Mr. Scheer.
We're now going to go on to Mr. Sidhu for six minutes.
Mr. Sidhu, the floor is yours.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair. How much time do we have until the vote?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
We have seven minutes and 47 seconds.
You have six minutes. The floor is yours. Go ahead for six minutes.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Okay.
First of all, thank you to our witnesses for joining us here today and sharing your thoughts and views.
I remember speaking with so many residents in Brampton back in 2019. Many of them were worried that the Conservatives were looking to make $18 billion in cuts to infrastructure, when a growing city like Brampton requires more investments. I know that infrastructure is top of mind for so many of my constituents—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Mr. Scheer, Mr. Sidhu has the floor, please. Thank you.
Mr. Sidhu, go ahead.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
I know that infrastructure is top of mind for so many of my constituents. I'm proud to say that our Liberal government has invested over $45 million into Brampton transit, which is the largest investment over 10 years for Brampton transit. The $38 million in the Riverwalk project will ensure the resilience of the city while creating jobs.
What I'm getting at is the importance of infrastructure. I'm proud to see our government's commitment to infrastructure. I wanted to address that first and foremost.
My first question is for Chief Gale.
Chief, you spoke about the importance of infrastructure, especially for the first nation indigenous communities. We know there's a growing infrastructure deficit in this country, especially in indigenous communities. Can you please speak to how the Infrastructure Bank can help address this critical deficit?
Chair, First Nations Major Projects Coalition
Our members have been advocating for equity ownership in projects for a long time. There are many reasons for this, because equity means partnership, and a lot of our projects that our first nations are working on are missing that partnership piece. Partnerships allow us to have a say in all aspects of the projects. Whether it is for the Trans Mountain project or another project, partnerships with indigenous communities always lead to better outcomes.
Also, just in case I don't get another question, I wanted to say that the work that we're doing at the coalition has been very beneficial to our members for the fact that we're gaining new tools on how to make these decisions. I also wanted to invite you guys to our renewable energy announcement that Fort Nelson First Nation is going to be announcing tomorrow at 11 Pacific time. It just shows you what can be done on the ground when we have the tools to make informed decisions with our members. I wanted to share that with you.
Thank you.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you, Chief Gale. I'll definitely be coming back to you with another question, so you'll have plenty of time.
When Minister McKenna joined us a few weeks ago, she spoke about the important project that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is working on, namely, the Kivalliq hydro-fibre link tjat will provide clean power to first nation communities in the north. Can you speak to how these types of projects help forge important partnerships and good jobs in these communities?
Chair, First Nations Major Projects Coalition
We all know that the environmental impacts are very important when it comes to making decisions on infrastructure projects for first nations. It's more beneficial when first nations have a say from the ground up into the boardroom level, and also with having the opportunity to be involved in the project from one. I feel that when you do that, you're going to have fewer delays and maybe fewer things that have to go through the courts.
With those kinds of things, they're very important to first nations, and I think it's a good way to move forward, especially on projects like that, which are so meaningful to the communities. It really gives them more of a hand-up than a handout when they're directly involved and they're participating in the project and making those informed decisions and bringing back the membership so that they can make those decisions together with their elders and community members.
Liberal
Maninder Sidhu Liberal Brampton East, ON
Thank you for those important insights.
My next question is for Dr. Riordan. You mentioned the effective avenues to stimulate public-private partnerships through the Canada Infrastructure Bank. You also mentioned that $120-billion in investments is required. Could you please speak to what sustainable investments, investments that reduce carbon emissions, would look like to you and lead us to a low-carbon economy?
Associate Professor, Institute for Sustainable Finance, Queen's University
Certainly in our report we highlight a number of investments. The first one is the retrofitting industry for buildings. We identified four areas for investment. One was buildings, and I think the Canada Infrastructure Bank has already made strides there announcing their retrofitting program. The next one was in transportation. We live in a big country, and even 50 or 100 years from now we're still going to have to get from coast to coast to coast, and so this is certainly something that we need to address.
One of the other areas that we highlighted was electrification—so the new electric bus recommendations. Then we also highlighted oil and gas and electricity. For oil and gas, we looked at investments in things like carbon capture and storage, and using electricity to help us get off some of our fossil fuels, or at least slowly transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies.
Those would be the three or four investments that we highlighted as being both environmentally positive, but also win-wins economically for the country.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
Thank you, Mr. Riordan, and Mr. Sidhu.
We are now going to take this opportunity to suspend to vote and will be back as soon as the vote is over.
To all of you, if you want to move to the House virtually on your apps, you'll be set to go.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Vance Badawey
I'm going to reconvene this meeting. We have our next speaker for six minutes.
Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor.
Bloc
Xavier Barsalou-Duval Bloc Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Sanger, you made several criticisms of the Canada Infrastructure Bank earlier. One of the things you mentioned was that Great Britain had bought infrastructure from the private sector.
What do you think would be a better use of the money in the Canada Infrastructure Bank? We're still talking about $35 billion, which is a lot of money.
Executive Director, Canadians for Tax Fairness
Yes, I wrote a report four years ago saying that the Infrastructure Bank should be turned into a truly public infrastructure bank that could provide low-cost financing to help lever other public finances. In the U.K. the chancellor just announced a new national infrastructure bank, which is partly modelled on the CIB. In some ways we're not quite clear how it's going to go, but it's very focused on green infrastructure.
As I said, I don't think we should be using much higher-cost private finance, costing multiples that of public finance, to finance public infrastructure. As I said, I think they could turn it into a truly green infrastructure bank where we could use the low cost of public finance. The government is already doing it in a whole lot of ways for a lot of areas of the private sector. We should be using that public finance to meet the big challenge of climate change and extend low-cost public finance to a whole lot of other sectors of the broader public sector. The zero-emission bus initiative sounds really great, and it could be extended in a whole lot of different ways to indigenous communities, housing and retrofits.