Transport Committee on March 23rd, 2021

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

I'm just wondering what kinds of documents Mr. Bachrach is seeking. To get to the heart of the matter, the motion is a little obscure as to the intent, I think. Maybe he could talk a bit more about what he's hoping to get out of this.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Fillmore, for the question.

There are two things that I would like to receive and have tabled with the committee.

We just received the PBO report, which shows the utter failure of the Canada Infrastructure Bank to deliver on any of its promises. We understand there are millions of dollars that have been paid to executives and to others who are no longer with the organization. I think the Canadian public deserves to know where those dollars went and how many of those dollars were performance bonuses for performance that didn't exist.

The two kinds of documents are, first of all, any policies around performance bonuses. Most organizations that provide performance bonuses have some sort of policies guiding those bonuses. I think it would be very interesting for the committee to know what those policies are. The second is any documents detailing whether or not performance bonuses were provided to the outgoing personnel involved in the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

I think Mr. Fillmore understands the concern of Canadians, and certainly of many members of this committee, which is that you have an organization that's created.... Four years down the road, it's not delivering on its mandate, and it has gone through all of these leadership positions. We're on the third chair and the second CEO, and the people who are no longer with the organization, on leaving, left with compensation. We should know why. Frankly, I don't think the performance of the bank, to date, has warranted bonuses, and I think many Canadians would share that view.

That's more than I intended to comment on, Mr. Chair, but I hope that helps Mr. Fillmore understand where we're coming from.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Fillmore.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thank you.

There are a couple of things here, Mr. Chair.

The first is that items like bonuses and salaries are all a matter of public record. They either have been or will be published in the annual report of the CIB. Last year's is out, and next year's will come out in due time.

I'm still struck by how some members of our committee just aren't embracing, I feel, the nature of large, complex infrastructure projects. The Trans-Canada Railroad took more than five years to complete. By the measure of Mr. Bachrach's motion, the Trans-Canada Railroad was a failure. Some very colourful adjectives were being employed there to describe what a serious failure we're facing here.

It's not a failure at all. As we've heard from Mr. Cory, these infrastructure projects are complex, and they have very long timelines. They involve multiple jurisdictions, often between provinces, and there is a question of the risk that's involved in terms of long-term capital. Of course, that's exactly why the CIB exists—to help mitigate that long-term risk.

I agree with Mr. Cory's assessment that we're exactly on track. I feel like I'm on a bit of a soapbox here, as the committee's resident city planner, but this is what infrastructure is: complex, time-consuming, with long periods of planning, long execution, and after that long periods of maintenance and operation.

However, I do believe that everything Mr. Bachrach is asking for is on public record. This is a redundant motion. This stuff is all available.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.

I have Mr. Rogers, Mr. El-Khoury, Mr. Barsalou-Duval, Mr. Scheer, and then I'll go back to Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Rogers, go ahead.

[Churence Rogers, Liberal, Bonavista—Burin—Trinity, NL]

Mr. Chair, I was going to make a couple of comments, but Mr. Fillmore just covered them. I thought this was public [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I'm not sure why we'd be looking for information that is readily available.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Rogers.

Mr. El-Khoury.

[Fayçal El-Khoury, Liberal, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know whether we intend to become chartered accountants for the Canada Infrastructure Bank. All this information is public. It would rather be up to another committee to make those verifications. I think this is the purview of the Standing Committee on Finance, which considers these issues in depth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. El-Khoury.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to let my colleague who just spoke know that, if he is looking for a chartered accountant, I am one.

Had someone else not moved the motion, I would have done it myself. There is a culture of secrecy concerning the salaries and bonuses at the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which is not actually achieving any results. Canadians have serious doubts and concerns in that regard. I am hearing a lot of comments to that effect. People are outraged to see the extent to which this organization lacks transparency, despite using public funding and despite its employees being paid through our taxes.

Even publicly traded companies disclose more information than the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which is a public organization. I see absolutely no reason to oppose the adopting of this motion. It is difficult for me to understand the many comments from my Liberal colleagues. Are they against transparency? Are they against obtaining information to which all Canadians should already have had access?

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Mr. Scheer.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

I appreciate where Mr. Fillmore is coming from, but it's also quite clear that we've heard from many witnesses that there are many projects that are not getting built, the types of projects that don't take four, five, six or seven years, but which could normally be completed in the normal time frame of less than three years.

The bank has been up and running for almost four years now. If the bank were to come to this committee.... If Mr. Cory were to come to this committee and say, “We're planning on building another trans-Canada railway” or “We're going to build a railway up to Churchill, Manitoba” or “We're going to twin the track in some places”, we could all understand that, and yes, that would take a great deal of time. However, you could also see visible stages being completed.

The mandate of this bank was that it was going to unleash private sector investment. That is not happening. The mandate of this bank was that it was going to complete projects that otherwise would not get built. That is not happening.

We have a situation where the bank itself is reporting over $100 million in operating losses in the last year, combined with an $87-million loss on the REM project in Montreal, or perhaps that $100 million captures the $87 million.

The point here is that we have bonuses and payouts to people involved with this bank who have not met expectations. A bonus is reserved for someone who has exceeded expectations. That is in the Treasury Board guidelines. They talk about performance reviews and evaluations. Senior civil servants who score very high on those are given a performance award for going above and beyond.

When a bank has zero projects completed in almost four years, I think this committee deserves to know the basis on which those bonuses were paid out.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Scheer.

I will go to Mr. Bachrach first, and then to Ms. Jaczek and Mr. Sidhu.

Mr. Bachrach, go ahead.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

My colleagues have laid out many of the arguments in favour of this motion, but really, the information we have to date about executive compensation at the bank and these severance or bonus arrangements has come through access to information requests, not the bank's own disclosure. There's this $3.8 million. We don't know how many people have received compensation and under what terms, or what policies guide performance bonuses.

What we've heard today at committee are really two stories. We're hearing a story from Mr. Cory that the bank is on track, that it's a stunning success. This model is going to be tremendous in the future. Then we read the PBO's report, which paints such a starkly different picture.

If the bank indeed feels that it's being successful and it's on track, and if it is rewarding its executives with performance bonuses before letting them go, it's strange that they keep leaving. Usually, if you're successful, you would keep the same people in place. Canadians deserve to know exactly what's going on here, because it doesn't add up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Bachrach.

Ms. Jaczek.

[Helena Jaczek, Liberal, Markham—Stouffville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I think probably a lot of this information is available in annual reports. The way I'm hearing Mr. Bachrach is that he wants an up-to-date statement of any payments that have been made out since, perhaps, the last annual report would have detailed them.

I can understand where he's coming from. It strikes me as somewhat redundant, and we have so much else to do. It's something that has taken time from our witnesses today, but clearly the idea of some transparency is not something I would be opposed to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Ms. Jaczek.

Mr. Sidhu.

[Maninder Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Transparency is always important, but I know—I just did a simple Google search—that much of this is online. The bank files annual reports; it's all public information. Public tax dollars are being used, so I think transparency is key, but it's on the Internet.

I don't know what's behind this, but I think we have many more studies of interest to so many members across Canada that would be a more beneficial use of our time. I wanted, though, to put this forward, that a lot of this information is online.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Sidhu.

Mr. Fillmore.

[Andy Fillmore, Liberal, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Chair.

We have witnesses waiting. In fact, the PBO is here at the request of the Bloc and the NDP. There are important things to hear from these witnesses. We've already heard, from the last motion, that we have too much on our docket as it is—too many studies, too many things to do here. I feel this is a bit of a waste of time.

However, I heard Mr. Bachrach talk about transparency, and he opined that he thought maybe the Liberal members were trying to block some [Technical difficulty—Editor].

To prove that, in support of the transparency that we live by and will continue to express, I'll support the motion, but with an objection that we're just wasting time here.

That's all I wanted to say.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Thank you, Mr. Fillmore.

Are there further questions?

(Motion agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

Thank you, members, and thank you, Mr. Clerk.

Now we're going to go back to Mr. Bachrach.

Mr. Bachrach, the floor is yours for just over a minute and a half.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Cory, for your patience.

Mr. Cory, in the earlier round of questioning you indicated that the bank was on track. To me, that indicates that the bank is where it wanted to be at this juncture in time.

Is that really what you're trying to tell us, that four years in, the bank is exactly where it intended to be, where it wanted to be—that it's on track?

[Ehren Cory]

I think my earlier comment was that I think we are headed in the right direction. What I mean by that is that a lot of early groundwork was necessary for priming the pump on projects, creating a real funnel and pipeline of projects.

As I said, we're not going to have time to do it, probably, but we have now, I think, a really great set of investments, from nation-building transit across multiple provinces to transmission lines that connect provinces, trade corridors that connect us both within Canada and outside, but also a whole number of pragmatic, shorter-term projects that will lead to real investment and that have started to do so. I've started to articulate to you and the rest of the committee today, Mr. Chair, some of those projects.

So I feel we're headed on the right track. Since I joined, the focus—

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Cory, let me ask you one more quick question. I know our time is really short.

[The Chair, Liberal, Vance Badawey]

Go ahead, Mr. Bachrach.