Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent question.
Let us consider the issue of the infrastructure bank. From what we have heard, investors are not really interested in projects under $100 million.
The Minister of Finance himself has admitted that the smaller municipalities might not get much from the infrastructure bank. The municipalities with high credit ratings, such as AAA, are not interested, because it is more profitable for them to borrow than to provide investors with rates of return ranging between 7% and 9%. So what is left?
The infrastructure bank will mainly target the poorest of the big municipalities and large cities that do not have access to a high credit rating. Obviously, they will be the most attractive targets for privatization of their infrastructures and for collection of tolls and user fees. The consumers, the users, will already have paid for the infrastructures in part, through their income taxes.
Of course the Liberals never mention this, but it will have to be considered within the big infrastructure plan, which seems to me very chaotic.