Mr. Speaker, I am extremely pleased to rise in the House today to talk about the Liberals' infamous infrastructure bank, which I would say is loaded with conflicts of interest. I want to begin by thanking the NDP for moving this motion on such an important topic today.
I will have another chance to talk about these dubious relationships a little later, but I want to begin by outlining the unusual progress of this plan and the problems we have had from the start getting to the bottom of things because of the lack of transparency of the Liberal government, which was supposed to be so open and transparent.
In October 2015, the Liberals promised to run small deficits of $10 billion and announced the creation of an independent infrastructure bank. What a good way to hide public money in a shiny new Liberal government toy.
When the bank was finally announced in November 2016, I asked the Minister of Infrastructure where he intended to get the money to finance it. It was radio silence as usual, and I did not get an answer. The next day, when I again asked where the money was supposed to come from, I was told that the government was planning to take $15 billion out of the infrastructure program for Canadian municipalities and put it into the bank. At that point, a lot of people in municipal government did a double take, when the money they could have used to fund major projects in communities across Canada just evaporated.
A few weeks later, the government rubbed salt in the wound. Not only was it going to take Canadian municipalities' $15 billion away and invest it in the infamous infrastructure bank, but now, most of the projects funded by the infrastructure bank would be worth over $100 million or even $500 million because investors would not be interested in funding anything smaller. Where I come from, people call that getting shafted.
In November, December, January, February, March, April, and May, I asked the Minister of Infrastructure at every opportunity to name a single project worth $100 million or more that could be funded by this infrastructure bank in a small or medium-sized municipality in Canada. I did not ask him to name 10, 20, or 100 municipalities, but just one little project. I have asked him this question at the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, during question period, and during various discussions, but he has never been able to name a single project.
That makes sense, because if you look at all Canadian municipalities, the average value of the projects partially or fully funded by the federal government is not $100 million or more, but rather $6.7 million. With the exception of projects in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, and a few provincial megaprojects, there are no projects worth $100 million or more in the vast majority of Canadian municipalities. This means that that $15 billion, which could have helped all Canadians, will serve only a small group of individuals, namely foreign investors, the friends of the Liberal Party.
The Prime Minister and his Minister of Infrastructure did not understand the story of Robin Hood, who steals from the rich to give to the poor. What the Prime Minister and his Minister of Finance, Minister of Infrastructure, and government are doing is taking money that should have been given to small and medium-sized municipalities and giving it to multi-billionaire foreign investors. That is what is happening.
Then, we learned from Michael Sabia, president of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, who sits with other investors on a committee that was put in place to advise the minister, the government, and the Prime Minister, that these investors will want returns of 7% to 9% before they are interested in investing in this bank.
My colleague who just spoke and I are former municipal officials, former mayors. We can say that all the municipalities are able, with obligations, to get funding at a maximum rate of 2%. As a result, the municipalities have no interest in investing in this infrastructure, except on the recommendation of the government. It will only serve to fill the pockets of these private investors, these foreign investors, and these friends of the government who are filling the Liberals' election coffers at fundraisers across Canada.
Every time we ask the government about this, it is radio silence. We learned from a document that I mentioned earlier, written by BlackRock, that in August 2016, the largest investment firm in the world secretly met with senior officials and their guests, potential clients of this bank. Through the Access to Information Act, we were able to get access to information about all of these meetings, including the agendas and subjects discussed.
Oddly, we have no information because everything except for the titles was redacted. We do not have the names of the people who attended the meetings with the Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Infrastructure, and the Minister of Transport. Where is the list of BlackRock's guests and clients, those who are going to profit from this infrastructure bank? This is frustrating. The Liberal government says it is transparent, but it is impossible to get this list or what was on the agenda for the meetings.
BlackRock even helped the minister write his speech during an event that was held in November. It is unbelievable when we think about it. With all the support around the minister, including writers, he had to ask a private firm to help him write his speech.
As I was saying, all the top Liberals were at that meeting: the Minister of Finance, the Minister of International Trade, the Minister of Innovation, the Minister of Health, the Minister of Heritage, the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, the Minister of Transport, the Minister of the Environment, and, of course, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Surprise, surprise. The infrastructure bank is exactly what the investors were hoping for. Investors have managed to create a bank to meet their needs and that will yield minimum returns of between 7% and 9% and possibly 10% to 12% in some cases. Of course the projects will have to be worth more than $100 million to be of interest to them.
Who made these smart recommendations? Michael Sabia and Mark Wiseman, two members of the Trudeau government's advisory council on economic growth who, coincidentally, will directly benefit from the establishment of this infrastructure bank.
Michael Sabia is the president of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Mark Wiseman is member of the global executive committee of BlackRock. There is obviously a conflict of interest. It begs the question: did these people declare a conflict of interest? The answer is no. There is no declaration, and they have no intention of stepping away from the consultations. They came up with the idea for this infrastructure bank. They recommended it to the government. They got the Justin Trudeau government to make that decision. We asked many questions, which all went unanswered.