Hi. Thanks for having me.
As Bobby said, this bank could do a lot of good for municipalities, and CUPE would like this to work well. The problem is that you can’t build public projects in the public interest while also letting investors take control of the asset and make decisions based on profit. If you try to do that, what you get are some of the problems we've been having with the bank. There's a huge trade-off as the public loses control over the asset, loses oversight and loses accountability, and the infrastructure is no longer built where and how it makes the most sense for the public, but where and how it will make the most money for the investor.
The Réseau express métropolitain, or REM, in Montreal is a perfect example. And don't get me wrong, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, or CUPE, is pro more public transit, and I honestly hope I'm wrong about the REM because I live in Montreal.
Here are some of the perverse things that can happen when you try to make money at the expense of the public interest.
The first phase of the REM was announced as 24 new stations, but in reality, 12 of those stations were for a commuter train that was already electrified and was basically almost new and worked very well. It was the best-performing commuter train we had, and we're going to bulldoze this commuter train and spend $1.2 billion to rebuild this new REM in exactly the same place. I think most would say that it's not money well spent when we could have used that $1.2 billion to go into areas where there's not enough transit and where people have been asking for transit for many years.
There was also a law that was created whereby the REM and the construction along two of the antennas were carved out completely from past and future environmental assessments. I don't think there are many people here who could tell me that is in the interests of the environment or the public—