Transport Committee on May 9th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Dr. Lewis and Mr. Cory.

Next we have Mr. Chahal.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you for your testimony today, Mr. Cory and everybody else who's joined you.

I want to start off a little bit on where you ended. You said you worked for McKinsey 10 years ago.

[Ehren Cory]

It was just over that, yes.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

How long did you work at McKinsey?

[Ehren Cory]

I was there from 2001 until 2012, so about 11 years.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

It was during the period of 2006 to 2015...or 2012.

[Ehren Cory]

It was until 2012, yes.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

You worked at McKinsey and you also did a lot of work, or some work, with the federal government at the time. You had some interactions.

[Ehren Cory]

They were a client of mine, yes.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

I believe that in that period, the Conservative government was the government under Stephen Harper.

[Ehren Cory]

That's correct.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

It's a time I want to forget because a lot of damage was done by the Conservative government during the 2006 to 2015 period.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We have a point of order.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

I would think that Mr. Chahal would know better than to make those types of comments at that particular [Inaudible—Editor], so I thought I would—

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

That's not a point of order; that's debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

That's not a point of order, unfortunately. That is indeed debate.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

He can make whatever comment he wants.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

We will turn the floor back over to Mr. Chahal and I will make sure that it does not interrupt his time.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to go back to some questioning that ties into where I was headed after asking that question.

Mr. Cory, when it was announced that you would be leaving Infrastructure Ontario, Laurie Scott, Ontario's minister of infrastructure at that time said, “I would like to thank Ehren for his outstanding service to the people of Ontario...Ehren has been critical to ensuring that IO is well positioned to succeed on the next generation of infrastructure projects, including the hospitals, roads, courthouses and subway projects on the P3 Pipeline.”

Could you please tell us how you worked with not only different levels of government, but governments of different political stripes as well?

[Ehren Cory]

Thank you, I appreciate the question.

I think the important context for this discussion is why I ended up at the CIB or at Infrastructure Ontario.

I never pretend to speak for others, but I know both Mr. Jaswal and Mr. Robins would echo this. All three of us are people who have an interest in both business and commercial enterprise, and also a really big interest in public service and in our country. I went to university and started in poli-sci when I was 18, and then I went into business. I spent 15 years or so working all over the world for energy companies, doing solar developments in the U.S. and building new nuclear in Finland.

At the heart of it, I was still a Canadian who cared about the stuff we built in our country, so in 2012, I decided to join the public service in Ontario. That was under a Liberal administration, but I'm just a public servant. I'm pretty agnostic. I want to get stuff built in our country and make it a better place. I served from 2012 when I joined IO until.... There was a change in government in 2018 in Ontario. I spent two more years working with the then-Conservative government.

By the way, what that shows to me is that infrastructure—and I really appreciate the member's question—cuts across every level of government in Canada. It cuts across every colour or political affiliation. I talk to mayors, premiers, indigenous leaders and federal politicians of all stripes. This is actually one of the few things we have consensus on as a country, isn't it? It's that we need to build more stuff if we want our goods to move faster, if we want to make the green transition and if we want to connect our country in a better way.

Infrastructure actually isn't very political, so I'm not either. I think all of our team members share that view of trying to get more stuff built in a pretty apolitical way.

Yes, I've worked with governments of all forms.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you for that.

Conservative Party members' opposition to the Infrastructure Bank has been quite clear. Their former leader a few leaders ago, Mr. Scheer, was here last year attacking the bank as well, I remember.

That's quite surprising when we've seen substantial investment. You talked about irrigation investments you've made in my province of Alberta and how it's helped thousands of farmers produce better yields. You talked about the investments in Saskatchewan with renewable power.

Recently, you were on a podcast with the former minister under Stephen Harper, the Honourable Lisa Raitt, who's had a very positive relationship with the CIB.

Could you please tell the committee about any projects you or the CIB have worked on with Ms. Raitt and CIBC and how you feel it's important for all political parties to get infrastructure built for Canadians?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Give a 20-second response, please, Mr. Cory.

[Ehren Cory]

I'll do it fast. I'll give one example, and this goes back to an earlier question about leverage. A simple example is that Markham District Energy Inc., a municipally owned utility, came to us and said that they really wanted to build out—triple, I believe it was—the size of their district energy system and get a bunch of buildings off natural gas. They asked us if they could borrow money. We said, “Possibly, but isn't there an opportunity for private capital to an also be involved in this?” If it was just us and the City of Markham, that would still be public.

We ran a debt competition with Markham where we invited commercial lenders to come. CIBC bid in that process, competitively bid with others, and won. That was the first project that I met Ms. Raitt about. I think that's just an example of a number of projects where we've engaged the private sector to bring financing to public problems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cory.

Thank you, Mr. Chahal.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Mr. Chair, for full disclosure, I worked for CIBC many, many years ago. I just want to put that on the record.