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.