Transport Committee on March 25th, 2026

[Ehren Cory]

I'm sorry, Mr. Chair; to be very clear, the only conversation with anyone in government was literally, as I was trying to describe, when we were holding an announcement a few weeks ago in public to announce the project moving ahead, at which time we informed local members provincially and federally that we were planning an announcement and they would be welcome to attend.

[Leslyn Lewis, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

So your answer is yes.

[Ehren Cory]

The answer is that there was no further discussion other than there was a public announcement coming.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Cory.

Thank you, Dr. Lewis.

We'll turn the floor over to Mr. Kelloway.

You have five minutes, sir.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here.

I'll start with you, Mr. Cory. Did this project receive any special treatment, yes or no?

[Ehren Cory]

No—unequivocally.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Was it a sweetheart deal?

[Ehren Cory]

Again, unequivocally no, it was not.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Do you know the directors of Roswall?

[Ehren Cory]

No, I do not. Apparently, I was once at an industry round table with one or two of them, where, along with 40 or 50 others, we talked about energy in Nova Scotia. It's the only time I think I've ever been in the same room. I've never met them.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

I'll stay with you, Mr. Cory. Could you describe the process in terms of when you're making an investment? Clearly, you have taxpayer dollars. This is important. We're here to discuss that. Can you walk through the process by which you made this approval?

I'm from Nova Scotia. As was clearly articulated by a member across the way, this is an important project. MP Fancy spoke very eloquently about the impact for Nova Scotia. It will bring jobs and help the ratepayer, which we desperately need in Nova Scotia. We have ingenuity in Nova Scotia. We have skill in Nova Scotia. We have people who want to invest in Nova Scotia.

On the merits of this project, sir, can you talk about the process by which you approved it? We're proud in Nova Scotia of all the stakeholders, including the Premier of Nova Scotia, who endorses this project. Can you speak to that, sir?

[Ehren Cory]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the question. It's exactly where I was going to start.

Mr. Guneratna spoke to this a little bit. This project really started with a strategic conversation we have been having with the Province of Nova Scotia, the premier, his government and the deputy minister of energy in the province around how the transformation of the electricity grid in Nova Scotia needed to happen.

That has a number of tentacles to it. The battery storage project is one. The wide build-out of wind is another, as well as new transmission and the potential for offshore wind. There's a pretty ambitious plan afoot in Nova Scotia, so we've been working at a strategic level with the province around all of those investments and what they're going to take. That's step one.

From there, the next step was the equity provider, which is Slate Asset Management, a company that I think is based here in Toronto. They reached out to us and said that they were planning an investment and wanted to talk to us about the project itself.

Our team, led by Mr. Guneratna, met with them, received financial models from them explaining the project and the renewable-to-retail program, this concept of consumer choice and the risk that comes with that. It is quite unique, because it's not like most power projects that are owned by utilities, where you build them, they go into the rate base and they get paid for. For this project, they have to go out and sell power to individual consumers, sign them up to buy clean power, sign up companies that want to have clean power, hospitals that want to have clean power and individual consumers. That was the challenge that the project faced.

Our investment team, led by Sashen, did a review of that and came up with terms of a loan that would address that problem. Those terms are not a low-interest loan. As I said in my opening remarks and in questions earlier, that's a competitive interest rate. It's designed to help manage the risk so, if they have a slower time signing up customers—imagine—then our repayment might take a little longer. That's the kind of flexibility that taxpayer money.... That's why the CIB exists. We help them share in the risk of ramp-up and signing up customers so that this new program can exist and that a new wind farm can get built.

That's the basis of our investment. That's what we took to our investment committee at the CIB, and eventually, then, to our board, which is a set of 10 private and completely independent individuals. We presented the merits of that investment, and we made it on that basis. That is how investments—this one and all others—work at the CIB.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

You have one minute, sir.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Okay. Mr. Albas wants my question.

I'll say this, and this is just more of a statement than anything. I think it's important for this committee to clearly evaluate and assess why investments are made. Something is very disturbing about this one.

In all seriousness—you can laugh over there—there's this trope that nothing can happen in Atlantic Canada unless you know someone, and it really bothers me. It bothers me that you've decided to do this.

Now, on the merits, you can do whatever you want.

Mr. Albas can squint and pretend he's a professor of high order. I take this seriously.

You can evaluate, and you can certainly determine if something was offside here, but this is a major project that, on its merits, makes sense. It's beginning to look like a Facebook post, where the trolls come out, make their posts and say, “Yeah, but....” “Yeah, but....” “Yeah, but....” I think that, if any Canadians and, in particular, any anti-Canadians are watching this today, they know exactly what I'm talking about.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kelloway.

Mr. Barsalou-Duval, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Actually, I would like to correct something I said earlier. I mentioned that several of the Liberal members who participated in the June 17 lobbying meeting were at the table today. I said there were two, but there are actually three. Shannon Miedema also took part in the lobbying meeting and is now around the table to defend the project.

That brings me to my question for Mr. Cory.

You know, Mr. Cory, several years ago, the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities produced a report concluding that the Canada Infrastructure Bank should be abolished. The NDP agreed, the Bloc Québécois agreed and the Liberals agreed. We all came to that conclusion at the end of the study, agreeing that it was a bit of a partisan problem. Today, what we're seeing is that this is ultimately what happens. Money is being handed out to friends of the Liberal Party.

When we see this kind of thing happening, which is exactly what everyone feared, do you think it helps people trust your institution and your alleged impartiality?

[Ehren Cory]

I have two comments. First, we're very proud of the progress we've made at the bank in getting infrastructure built in this country, across this country, working with governments at all levels, regardless of political stripe.

I think Canadians would look at the CIB and realize that we have projects in Alberta, in British Columbia, in Nunavut and in Nova Scotia. We work with governments of every stripe. We work with individuals of every stripe. We work with business owners across the country. Many business owners bring us ideas, and we work with them to get infrastructure projects built. We conduct rigorous review around conflict of interest. There were none in this case.

Mr. Chair, I dispute this notion. There's no preferential treatment in this loan. We made a loan to people who had a really positive business idea that's providing choice. It's backed by the Nova Scotia government. It's backed by other parts of the federal government. It's a really strong contributor to the overall grid—

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

Mr. Cory, you say that the project is supported by the Liberal government. However, we see that the Liberals are lining up to defend the project today, when it benefits the Liberals. I'm sure you'll understand that this is what worries me the most. It seems to reassure you. I'm trying to understand why.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Schiefke]

Thank you, Mr. Barsalou-Duval.

Thank you very much, Mr. Cory.

Mr. Lawrence, you have five minutes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Cory, your shamelessness, at points, is just shocking.

The company got $200 million from your bank. The president, chairman of the board and two directors are, by FINTRAC's definition, “politically exposed persons”. They are all relatives of former or current Liberal members of Parliament.

Did you know this before you gave them the loan?

[Ehren Cory]

I'm going to let Mr. Duguay answer that question.

[Frédéric Duguay]

I think we need to—

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Clarke, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like it to be Mr. Cory. He gets paid over $1 million by taxpayers. He can answer our questions.

[Ehren Cory]

Mr. Chair, I'm happy to start, but Mr. Duguay is better positioned than I am. I believe the premise of the question....

By the way, Mr. Duguay is our organization's “know your client” and anti-money laundering expert—what's called the CAMLO—so I will be turning to him.

I will just say that the premise of the question is not correct. There was no identification of persons who—