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Context: House Hansard - 240 - Oct/26/23

Oct/26/23 12:42:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, the member opposite was probably not listening to the countless examples of projects that the investments in the Infrastructure Bank are delivering on. What we have heard time and time again from communities is that, yes, we need traditional infrastructure programs to deal with the needs communities are facing right now, but in addition to that, we need big, bold ideas, which is what the Canada Infrastructure Bank represents, to build projects that, frankly, sometimes municipalities and communities cannot do on their own. As I said before, communities deserve to have the federal government involved in ensuring they are built up, that investments are made and that we are working to provide expertise to ensure that some of these more challenging projects get built. However, this is in addition to traditional infrastructure projects that municipalities continue to say they want and support.

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Ms. Leslyn Lewis (Haldimand—Norfolk, CPC)

Oct/26/23 12:43:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Sarnia—Lambton. The Liberal government has created a series of complicated and inefficient infrastructure programs that have regularly failed to deliver results and get money out the door. The Canada Infrastructure Bank, the government's flagship policy, is no exception to this fact. It has been an immense failure. The Infrastructure Bank has spent millions on overhead, high-priced consultants, CEO payouts, bonuses and corporate welfare while failing to get critical infrastructure built as part of its mandate. It is debatable whether the bank has built even one infrastructure project. In fact, last year, the bank spent twice as much money on salaries and bonuses than it paid in infrastructure. It also spent almost $1 million on consulting and legal fees for an electricity project that never got off the ground. The mandate of the bank is essentially to attract private sector investment for low-cost loans and to reduce the risk in order to get infrastructure built. However, the government's bank has turned into a form of taxpayer-funded corporate welfare. The bank repeatedly puts taxpayers on the hook for millions of dollars by subsidizing multi-billion dollar corporations, handing them low-cost interest rate loans at a much lower rate than what Canadians can go to the bank and get for themselves. It is frankly perverse that while Canadians are suffering with almost double-digit interest rates for their mortgages, while Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, while Canadians are rationing their children's baby formula and while Canadians are worried about whether they will be able to heat their homes and fill their gas tanks to go to work, we are being so careless with the taxpayer-funded loans that the bank gives out. While Canadians fear they will not be able to make their mortgage payments, and the average Canadian has these real fears, they are being asked simultaneously to subsidize billion-dollar companies to build projects that are not even successful, are often not needed and could be built better by the private sector. The bank was given a budget of $35 billion courtesy of taxpayers six years ago. The Liberals promised that taxpayers would see a return on investment of four times from private sector investors. They even anticipated that the investments from municipalities and provinces would yield an 11 times multiplier. However, that was six years ago and that has not happened. Private investment has not even been returned at a 1:1 ratio from the bank. The Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities determined that the Infrastructure Bank was not fixable. It needed to be abolished. The sole recommendation in its report was that the bank be abolished. The committee's recommendation was based on the testimony given by stakeholders involved in the infrastructure projects across this entire country. Witnesses highlighted that the bank was inefficient, lacked transparency and was unable to secure the private investments it promised it would secure. We are at a time of 40-year high inflation, when Canadians are struggling with the cost of home heating, groceries, food and daily living expenses. They cannot even afford their mortgage payments anymore because of the government's hefty deficit spending, which has driven up interest rates. Canadians cannot afford to continue to subsidize the government's bad investment. Canadians can no longer afford to foot the bill for this bank that cannot even deliver one single infrastructure project to Canadians. Conservatives will create a winnable process that gets infrastructure built and develops communities without wasting taxpayer dollars. The bank's executives each gave themselves bonuses last year, big bonuses, in fact. The Canada Infrastructure Bank paid $7.7 million in bonuses to every single one of its executives for getting zero projects done. They got bonuses for not producing, million-dollar bonuses for not producing. Speaking of efficiency, that is some level of incompetence. In fiscal year 2021-22, the bank also spent twice as much money on bonuses and salaries as it did on projects. This bank is here to finance executives and elites while Canadians are suffering. It makes no sense. At the same time, infrastructure project spending went down by more than half of the previous year and spending on salaries went up by 35%. Speaking of interest rates, it is really ironic that it is because of the government's failed economic policies and irresponsible spending that the bank's projects have failed. An example of this is the Lake Erie connector project. The bank actually invested $655 million in a $1.7-billion project to build a water electricity cable that is now dead in the water due to financial volatility and inflation. That $655 million was promised to a multi-billion dollar company, Fortis Inc., for an electricity project that ironically failed due to inflation. That inflation was caused by the Liberal government's overspending and reckless spending. A local press release at the time stated: “ITC made the decision to suspend the project after determining there is not a viable path to achieve successful negotiations and other requirements within the required project schedule. External conditions – including rising inflation, interest rates, and fluctuations in the U.S.-to-Canadian foreign exchange rate – would prevent the company from coming to a customer agreement that would sufficiently capture both the benefits and the costs of the project,” an ITC spokesperson said in a prepared media statement. “As a result, the company believes suspending the project is in the best interest of stakeholders.” The project failed due to interest rates. One and a half years ago, the Liberals were gushing about their new partnership with Fortis, a private company that rakes in billions of dollars in revenue every year, promising tons of low-carbon energy, billions in GDP and hundreds of Canadian jobs. Where are those billions? Where are those projects? They never materialized. Conservatives warned from the beginning that this was a risky and inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars, and we were ignored. We found out later that the bank wasted almost one million taxpayer dollars on consulting and legal fees for an electricity project that never got off the ground. The Lake Erie connector project demonstrates why this bank is an expensive failure. They are spending millions and they cannot get a single project built. At a time when Canadians are struggling to put food on the table, when almost two million Canadians every month are visiting a food bank, the government keeps wasting taxpayer dollars. In closing, I just want to highlight that the Fortis project was not transparent. We also witnessed very recently the situation at the Fairmont where the bank was—

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. John Nater)

Oct/26/23 12:54:01 p.m.
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Order. I do have to interrupt the hon. member as her time has expired. Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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Secretary

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Oct/26/23 12:54:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, really and truly, we just cannot make this stuff up. It is incredible. The member who just spoke referred to there being not even one project. If we want to talk about Conservative spin and misinformation, it blows my mind. That particular member has a project in her own backyard, in her constituency. Has she ever heard of Oneida Energy Storage? There is $170 million coming from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to complement a half-billion dollar project that is going to help her constituents. That is one of 48 projects, yet the Conservatives try to tell Canadians there are no projects. Are they serious? Talk about misinformation, and they want to get rid of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. It is an absolute shame. They are reckless, and they are risky. I would suggest they had better do their homework, because they are on a totally different planet.

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Ms. Leslyn Lewis

Oct/26/23 12:55:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that was quite the dramatic intervention. The truth of the matter is that the Canada Infrastructure Bank does fund projects, but it does so in a reckless way so that the projects never get to completion. That is what we are talking about. The bank cannot complete a project. It funded Fortis and then hid the fact that the project actually failed. That project was in my community. It would have affected my community of Haldimand—Norfolk where I reside, the community I represent, and the Liberals hid the fact that this project failed. They provided no updates on their website. They did not even answer to it until we raised a question in this House asking them for transparency. That is the only way we got an answer.

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Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ)

Oct/26/23 12:56:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always odd to hear the Conservative Party express concern about people's cost of living and the federal government's failed infrastructure projects. However, there is one infrastructure project that the Conservative Party never talks about, even though it is one of the largest infrastructure projects in Canadian history. I am talking about the acquisition and expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The government acquired it in 2017 for $4.5 billion. Initially, there was an expansion project estimated to cost $7.4 billion in public funds. The cost then jumped to $12.6 billion in 2020, later reaching $21.4 billion. Now it is at $30.9 billion. That is four times more expensive. Is my colleague prepared to say that an infrastructure project that costs four times as much should be scrapped and that we should sell off its assets and stop investing immediately?

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Ms. Leslyn Lewis

Oct/26/23 12:57:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, part of the reason we are seeing companies actually not wanting to invest in Canada is the unpredictablity of our legislative and regulatory framework. When companies invest in this country and the rules are changed midstream, it breeds corporate insecurity. On the question my friend posed, the increases in the cost are due to the Liberal government's failed regulations, its failed intervention and its failed interactions with corporations that would have caused security in investment.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

Oct/26/23 12:58:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard from Dream, another REIT that is using public financing through CMHC to build housing because it is cheaper. We now know from the Infrastructure Bank that private investors are looking at this financing because it is cheaper, and they would be making profits off of public money. When we look to Toronto, for example, the mayor of Toronto is looking to build 60,000 units that would cost about $13 billion in financing to ensure there is no homelessness. Does my colleague not agree that if we are going to use public financing to do investments, it should be going to public housing to serve public interests?

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Ms. Leslyn Lewis

Oct/26/23 12:59:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague has a very good point. We recently found out that the Infrastructure Bank actually funded a $46.5-billion loan to Fairmont hotels where the lowest-priced room is $500 a night and goes up to $1,400 a night. Most Canadians cannot afford to stay there for even one night. They claim the loan is for a retrofit project. My colleague's question is very viable, because there are many Canadians who would like help with retrofitting their homes, and they cannot apply for low—

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. John Nater)

Oct/26/23 12:59:45 p.m.
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We do have to move on. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Sarnia—Lambton.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu (Sarnia—Lambton, CPC)

Oct/26/23 12:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak about the Canada Infrastructure Bank. At the outset, it is important to reflect upon how this bank got started and what promises were made when it was put together. Thirty-five billion dollars that had been earmarked for infrastructure in municipalities was taken back by the federal government to create this bank. This is money that municipalities needed to build their roads and sewers and upgrade their bridges and everything else. The government took that money and put it in this Infrastructure Bank. The story at the time was that the government was going to attract private investors and was going to leverage taxpayer money probably 11 times. Here we are now, seven years later. I am sure members thought I was going to say “after eight long years”, but from 2016 to 2023, it is seven years. No projects have been built, and there have been lots of comments about the projects that are on the way to being built. However, as an engineer who worked in building and construction, I would say that if I had been given $35 billion seven years ago, I certainly would have built something by now, instead of just paying large salaries to executives, as we heard my colleague talk about. In comparison, the Conservatives under Stephen Harper had multiple kinds of infrastructure funds. They spent $53 billion and did 43,000 infrastructure projects in 10 years. Compare that to seven years and zero projects completed, or compare it to some of the other infrastructure projects taken over by the Liberal government. The Liberals took a pipeline that Kinder Morgan was going to build for $4.5 billion, paid $7 billion for it, and now it has cost $30 billion and it is not finished yet. That is the reason the committee members, when they talked about the Infrastructure Bank, listened to witnesses who were involved in it and invited the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and at the end of the day, the committee had one recommendation. That recommendation was to abolish the bank, because it clearly was not coming anywhere near achieving the goals. With respect to the money leveraging that was supposed to happen, we can go to the government web page. The government started with $35 billion and now we see that it is $38 billion. The $3 billion extra that came as this great leveraged money is really, over that period of time, a 1.7% increase. It would have been better to put the money in the bank and invest it. The government would have made more money that it has leveraged in this existing Infrastructure Bank. If we listen to the people who are talking about the good things the Infrastructure Bank could do, it is not that Canada does not have a need for infrastructure. We do not build anything. Under the Liberal government, 18 LNG facilities were cancelled. Let us talk about broadband. Broadband is something everyone needs. The government has been repeatedly called on to increase the amount of broadband, but again, zero projects have come out of this particular fund. We need nuclear facilities. We know that to meet the existing electrical demands and to grow, we do not have enough electricity in the grid, and we do not have enough infrastructure in the grid. In my riding of Sarnia—Lambton, we are having a number of new plants built, but we do not have enough electricity or infrastructure there. These are projects that Canada needs to build as a nation. We hear demands from other places across the country where they need rail infrastructure, places that need airport infrastructure and of course there is the need for pipelines to get our products to one coast or the other. I am not here to say that we do not need infrastructure. I am just saying the government does not seem to be able to build anything. We have had much discussion in the House of Commons about the housing crisis in this country, that we have the most land but we have built the fewest houses. In fact, the Liberal government built the same number of houses that were built in 1972, this after recognizing that we are five and a half million spaces short. One would think that if they do not know what to do with the $35 billion in the Infrastructure Bank and there is a huge housing crisis in the country, maybe that is a place to start to funnel that money to municipalities that have plans. My riding of Sarnia—Lambton has a great plan. It has put $38 million over 10 years into affordable housing and $40 million into maintaining and upgrading existing housing. It also has five projects over five years that will create 2,000 spaces. We are trying to close an affordable housing gap of about 6,500. Many municipalities have plans, and their plans are different. They could use this money back that is in the Infrastructure Bank, which is busy paying off bonuses to executives and not finishing projects. That is something that should be considered. We also have a lot of infrastructure needs related to climate change. Shoreline erosion is the first one I would raise. In my riding, we need $150 million to address the shoreline erosion. The member for Cumberland—Colchester was talking to me about the one way of transiting to access the land, which is being eroded, and it would cut off the Atlantic provinces if it were to collapse. It really needs work. There are needs for infrastructure. We should not be giving all of our money away to build infrastructure in other places, such as to the Asian infrastructure bank, which the Liberals gave $250 million to in order to build pipelines. They are building the piplelines they will not build here in other places. I always try to bring some positive ideas when I speak in the House. One of the ideas the Liberals might want to try is something being done in my riding, where postwar houses were built structurally to take another level on top. Private mortgagers are giving mortgages to first-time homebuyers to redo the house with an apartment above and an apartment below. This would support the mortgage and triple the amount of housing. Something like that would be a great thing to do with the amount of money that was put in the Infrastructure Bank. Instead, it is a failed initiative. The one recommendation from committee was to abolish the bank, and I support that.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Oct/26/23 1:07:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, would the member not at least acknowledge the fact that there are numerous projects in the works. One cannot have a multi-billion dollar investment and expect it to be done in six months. It takes time. There are 48 projects, so the Conservatives are being misleading when they try to give Canadians the impression that not one project has been done.

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Ms. Marilyn Gladu

Oct/26/23 1:07:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I did go on the government website to take a look at the projects that were listed there, and many of them are in the state of memorandum of understanding. That is a letter of intent. That is what that is. After seven years, one should have shovels in the ground and be near completion. I finished a billion-dollar project in three and a half years.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. John Nater)

Oct/26/23 1:08:08 p.m.
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It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings at this time and put forthwith the question on the motion now before the House. If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

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Participating

Mr. Bob Zimmer

Oct/26/23 1:08:51 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we would like a recorded vote.

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Recorded

The Acting Speaker (Mr. John Nater)

Oct/26/23 1:08:56 p.m.
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Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until later this day, at the expiry of time provided for Oral Questions.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Oct/26/23 1:09:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to, a little later than I had anticipated, present a petition on behalf of nearly a thousand residents of Saanich—Gulf Islands who are very concerned for the fate of the endangered little bird, the marbled murrelet, which is protected under the international Convention for the Protection of Migratory Birds. The Government of Canada is ignoring its obligations to protect this endangered species. I have had the great pleasure of getting to visit and watch the marbled murrelet up close and in person in the old-growth forests of Haida Gwaii. This little bird is a sea bird, but it nests in the roots of old-growth trees. That is the only place it nests. As the little bird emerges, and it is a little fluffball with very comical feet, it tears off to the shore and follows the unique call of its mother. It dives into the ocean waters and stays there, but—

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Mr. Charlie Angus

Oct/26/23 1:10:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I very much appreciate this, but I believe that during petitions we are supposed to stick to the petition so that we do not end up with overly political speeches. If we set a precedent, then other people will abuse it.

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The Acting Speaker (Mr. John Nater)

Oct/26/23 1:10:41 p.m.
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I thank the hon. member. I would encourage the member to briefly respond, and then we will carry on.

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Ms. Elizabeth May

Oct/26/23 1:10:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the substance of this petition is the dependence of the marbled murrelet on the specific and unique nesting in the old-growth forest. I am sorry for adding a personal anecdote of having seen this in person. I do not think it was overly political, but I take the hon. member's point. As a succinct petition, the petitioners require that the government pay attention to its obligations, which are international, due to the Migratory Birds Convention Act, and domestic, due to the Species at Risk Act. They also require that the government take immediate steps to halt the logging of old-growth forests, particularly in British Columbia and highlight the specific areas of tree farm licences where the old-growth forest uniquely sustains the existence of the marbled murrelet. I will close there, and I thank the member for Timmins—James Bay for giving me a chance to complete that thought.

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