Transport committee  I don't believe so. Again, obviously, everything is tight financially, particularly in municipalities, as you've heard. Their sole real ability to generate revenue is through property taxes. I think we need to be mindful of what people can pay. Again, the transfer of wealth from senior levels of government down to municipalities is a key component in financing a lot of these capital projects.

Transport committee  Again, when the current federal government, back in the election period in 2015, floated the idea of the public infrastructure bank, the vision at that point and the stated intention was that the mandate of the bank would be to provide low-cost loans to local governments to finance new public infrastructure and strengthen their communities.

Transport committee  Again, I've stated that we strongly believe the model is flawed, and we submitted, back in 2020, recommendations for the five-year review. In March we submitted another paper with five recommendations as to how we can reorient this bank towards servicing the public good, because, again, having a requirement to bring in private finance, we've seen over the five years of this bank, has been a failure.

Transport committee  I appreciate the question, and I think again over the last decade plus, we've seen a lot of that push towards the P3 public-private model. There are examples—I mentioned some of the public banks over primarily in Europe, northern Europe and other places—that place an emphasis on having public-public collaboration.

Transport committee  Again, I spoke about the overreliance on some of the advice provided by these multinational consulting firms. There are a couple of really good articles and books on it that detail the way that, particularly since the 1980s, there's been increasing involvement of these types of consultancies in ostensibly providing advice to governments.

Transport committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for having me here today. CUPE has been keenly involved and interested in the development and implementation of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I know this committee has previously resolved that the bank should be abolished, but we approach with cautious optimism how it might perhaps be reformed.