The Canada Infrastructure Bank is independent, but our government sets the overarching priorities for the bank. They're extremely broad priorities.
When you look at their growth plan, they developed a plan that reflected those priorities. I think it's to be applauded that Michael Sabia, the new chair, works with the board and the staff at the bank to look at what areas would make a difference in the shorter term.
The bank has overarching priorities, including public transit, transmission lines and other things that it's working on, but it asked, “What can we do in the shorter term that will create jobs now that will also make a big difference in the pandemic?” Let's just talk about broadband, the importance of connecting Canadians to broadband.
They are committing now to connect, in the shorter term, 750,000 homes and businesses to broadband. I think that's an example of them looking at opportunities, which I hope you would agree are really important. I know that I hear from Canadians about how important it is to be investing in broadband.
Also, it's great to see that the first project actually was an Albertan project, the bank working with Premier Kenney to do a project that's going to make a real difference to irrigation. This is about farmers. This is about ranchers. This is about the ag tech sector. It's about Canadian exports. I certainly applaud this.
I think we have to be more ambitious. We have to invest more in infrastructure, and we need to be doing it while working hand in hand with the private sector.