Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to be here today.
My name is Janice Fukakusa. I served as board chair of the Canada Infrastructure Bank from July 2017 until April 2020. I'll be speaking in a personal capacity and referring to the Canada Infrastructure Bank as CIB for ease of reference.
I accepted the invitation to speak to this committee because I know that Canada's infrastructure deficit is vitally important for our own productivity in Canada and for our quality of life. Canadians have every right to ask questions about the government's plan to address this deficit in a way that's efficient, sustainable and transparent. In my view, the CIB plays an important role in that plan.
As members of the committee know, the concept of the CIB was introduced to the Canadian public in the 2015 Liberal platform. The idea was a very important one, but it wasn't unique to Canada. Similar models worked very well in the U.K. and Australia. In 2016, the government announced the creation of the CIB in its fall economic statement. The proposal was studied in pre-budget consultations, then passed through the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act in June 2017.
Around the same time, I was moving towards a new phase in my career. In January 2017, I retired as the chief financial officer and chief administrative officer of the Royal Bank of Canada after 31 years with the bank and was looking for new ways to give back. While I've been fortunate in contributing meaningfully to various charitable organizations, I never had the opportunity to work directly with government in a day-to-day role. I applied for the position of inaugural board chair and was honoured to be offered the job in July 2017.
Many of my early days as chair were focused on standing up the CIB and ensuring it had the governance, talent and operating structure to deliver its mandate. Much of the time, I worked with a committee comprising government representatives from infrastructure, finance and other departments to hire a board of directors, and played a hands-on role on CIB's initial risk management, establishment of investment processes and procurement guidelines.
Before I hired CIB staff and got everyone together, I received support from Infrastructure and Communities Canada, in particular the CIB transition office. My principal contact there was the assistant deputy minister, Glenn Campbell. Given that this idea was novel to Canada, we knew it would require outside analysis. We approached McKinsey & Company, the Boston Consulting Group and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
On the strength of McKinsey's infrastructure advice and practice, the firm was awarded two contracts: one to provide advice on investment criteria, awarded in January 2018, and one for risk management advice, awarded in March 2018. Both contracts complied with the CIB procurement policy and amounted to a total of $940,000. McKinsey was not contacted to offer advice on specific projects, and I would not have accepted such advice.
Following the recruitment of Annie Ropar as CFO and Pierre Lavallée as president and CEO in June 2018, my role shifted primarily to board governance activities.
Sadly, Pierre passed away earlier this year after a battle with cancer, and I want to take this moment to recognize his valuable contributions to the CIB and his insights and professionalism in working with us. He did an outstanding job in laying the groundwork for success.
I stepped down from the role in April 2020 following the conclusion of my term so that I could focus on other commitments in the not-for-profit and private sectors. I'm very proud of our board's work in standing up the CIB so that it would be positioned to support Canada's 21st century infrastructure needs, and I left the organization with full confidence that the team could build on this work.
I recognize that many questions have been raised about the CIB's effectiveness and efficiencies in the current context. I'm not adequately up to speed with the current operations to answer those questions. I would only say that I continue to support the mandate and believe it has great potential to accelerate the pace of private infrastructure investments in Canada.
I would be happy to answer any questions from this committee on my work as board chair.
Thank you.