44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 22, 2022
- Bill C-245 is a proposed law that would change the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act. The purpose of the Bank would be refocused to prioritize certain investments and infrastructure projects. These priorities include investments from public institutions, all levels of government, and Indigenous communities, infrastructure projects that address climate change, and projects that are environmentally friendly. The proposed law would also require the Bank to include members recommended by Indigenous organizations on its board and submit an annual report on priority investments and projects. Additionally, there are provisions to protect privileged information obtained by the Bank.
- Yea (59)
- Nay (259)
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I declare the motion defeated.
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Pursuant to an order made on Thursday, November 25, 2021, the division stands deferred until Wednesday, June 22, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today for the second time to proudly speak to my bill, Bill C-245, an act to amend Canada's Infrastructure Bank, with a plea.
Time is running out, and our communities need help. It is clear the climate emergency is here. Our region is already being hit hard. Yesterday, in Winnipeg, we saw record high temperatures. Over the last month, Peguis first nation has seen unprecedented flooding. First nations such as Tadoule Lake had winter storm warnings in June, and we are already experiencing extreme forest fires, which have caused extensive damage. In parts of Ontario and Quebec, tornados and severe storms have been wreaking havoc the last number of weeks.
The bill is rooted in this reality, the reality that communities on the front lines, particularly indigenous and northern communities, need action to survive climate change now. Since I tabled this legislation, I have heard from many indigenous and northern leaders across the country who have advocated tirelessly for federal support, support they have yet to receive. I have also heard from many who have reached out to the Canada Infrastructure Bank only to be rejected.
I have heard stories of first nations that were refused funding to upgrade a community hall in desperate need of fixing because they could not show the Canada Infrastructure Bank how it would be profitable, and of a northern community that was trying to switch off from diesel and were told to apply for solar panel funding without any recognition of the infrastructure needed to transition the community.
Communities do not need band-aids. They want to work with government to build infrastructure that mitigates and adapts to the increased precarious realities they face. Two first nations in our region, Poplar River and York Factory, have been left stranded in the last few weeks. It is clear they need all weather roads.
The government might show up to put a on band-aid for a short-term solution, but that is it, and we continue slowly and surely down a path, and we know where it ends. This is not how the federal government should be governing. Canadians deserve better. Communities at the forefront of the climate crisis deserve better. Time is running out and communities need our help.
Instead of getting that help, indigenous and northern leaders, and advocates can tune into this debate and hear the Liberals tell us that the Infrastructure Bank is doing great and that nothing needs to change. It is business as usual.
What we heard from the Liberals today on the bank is pure fiction. Communities know it. Canadians know it. The bank is a corporate welfare scheme. It is not doing the job the Liberals promised it would. Ironically, this week marks five years since the bank was founded. Five years later, the bank does not have a single success story to point to. It has given plenty of ammunition to those that were critical from the beginning, and it reinforces what many of us believe, which is that Liberals are more concerned with helping their wealthy friends than standing with Canadians.
In committees, in the House and in private meeting with Liberal MPs, I have consistently heard an acknowledgement that the bank is not what the government hoped for. We in the NDP have made serious propositions to fix it so it is there for the communities that need it most. We believe that public ownership is a critical tool in taking on the climate crisis. We believe that reconciliation ought to mean investing in critical infrastructure in indigenous and northern communities.
We cannot afford to miss this opportunity. When this historic agreement between the NDP and the Liberals was signed, there was talk about our shared principles on the environment and reconciliation. The Liberal opposition to our bill flies in the face of the spirit of that agreement. It used to be that the Liberals would steal good ideas from the CCF and the NDP. Now they cannot even see the value of a good idea in front of them.
The bill has unprecedented support, and for that I am thankful, from indigenous and northern leaders, climate activists, labour leaders, economists and Canadians from coast to coast to coast. We need to wake up. The world is burning. Indigenous and northern communities are fighting to survive. We do not need the Liberal greenwashing.
Indigenous and northern leaders are fighting for a better future. We cannot miss the opportunity to create a livable future for the communities that are already on the front lines. I hope that members of Parliament will read the hundreds of letters they have received from constituents and communities on the front lines. Time is running out. Our communities need help. Bill C-245 is a step in that direction.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand this morning in support of Bill C-245, an act to amend the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act.
It is important to note that it was just over three years ago when parliamentarians in the chamber admitted that we are in a climate emergency. If it is an emergency, then we should probably act like it is one. In fact, that is what international climate scientists called for in their most recent report from April. The co-chair of an IPCC working group said, “It's now or never, if we want to limit warming to 1.5°C”. That is the internationally agreed upon maximum to ensure that we are taking action at the pace that science tells us is required.
One way to do that is to take existing Crown corporations and direct their resources toward solving the climate crisis we are in. That is why I support Bill C-245, along with the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands, and that is why I really appreciate the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski bringing this legislation forward as her private member's bill. The bill recognizes that communities are at the forefront of the climate crisis and, as such, it would shift the priorities of the Canada Infrastructure Bank to be explicit about supporting climate adaption and mitigation efforts. The bill would do this in three ways: one would be to remove the parts of the Infrastructure Bank's mandate that allow it to seek out private investments; two would be to increase the transparency of the bank by requiring regular reporting to Parliament; and three would be to ensure that first nations, Inuit and Métis communities have a seat at the table on the board.
As it stands today, the Canada Infrastructure Bank was established back in 2017 as arm's length from government, with a budget of $35 billion. What an opportunity that is. Last year, the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported that it would not even spend half of that amount over the next 11 years. What a wonderful way to activate those funds if we are going to follow through.
As other speakers have mentioned, communities across the country are calling out for more. Municipalities are taking a leadership role, and Waterloo region is one example of that, but if communities across the country are going to follow through at the pace that science requires, they are going to need the federal government to step up. I recognize that the Canada Infrastructure Bank, as it stands today, requires projects to generate revenue, meaning they have to charge public user fees or tolls, directly or indirectly, to meet the needs of private investors. Instead, if approved, this bill would redirect those tens of billions of dollars toward the infrastructure projects we need, whether it is helping communities move off of diesel or moving to high-speech rail, the list goes on and on.
One person I respect on this topic is Seth Klein. He has said that we should think about urgency of the climate crisis the same way that we might have thought in the past about wartime efforts. I would like to share a quote from Mr. Klein, who said, “But in response to the climate emergency, we have seen nothing of this sort. In contrast to C.D. Howe’s wartime creations, the [Liberal] government has established two new Crown corporations during its time in office — the Canada Infrastructure Bank (a vehicle for privatizing infrastructure that has thus far accomplished very little), and the Trans Mountain Corporation (an ill-advised decision that makes all Canadians the owners of a 60-year-old oil pipeline). If our government really saw the climate emergency as an emergency, it would quickly conduct an inventory of our conversion needs to determine how many heat pumps, solar arrays, wind farms, electric buses, etc. we will need to electrify virtually everything and end our reliance on fossil fuels. Then, it would establish a new generation of Crown corporations to ensure those items are manufactured and deployed at the requisite scale.”
I invite members to think of the jobs we could create in this transition, and they would be good, unionized, well-paying jobs to transition our economy to that of the future. When I reflect on Mr. Klein's words and look at what is in this bill, that is what excites me about this.
Bill C-245 would be one step along a long journey, not only aligned with Mr. Klein's vision, but also with that of climate scientists, who are telling us that this is required and that action is not in eight years. It is certainly not thinking about net zero by 2050. The action is required now, and there are bills before the House, such as Bill C-245, which would equip us to do it.
That is the most important thing. It is not what one party or another is bickering about with each other. It is not about partisanship at all. Future generations will judge us and what we did in this chamber, and whether we collectively acted at the pace scientists tell us is required, rather than giving billions of dollars in new subsidies to fossil fuels, and invested it in the infrastructure we needed.
The bill is one we should all embrace, and I am proud to support it.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my friend for North Island—Powell River for that excellent speech. I also want to recognize my colleague for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski for bringing forward this important bill that we are debating today.
There are a couple of things I want to do in the next 10 minutes. First of all, I want to take us down memory lane to talk a bit about the infrastructure bank and what it has achieved, and more importantly what it has failed to achieve, over the past five years. I also want to talk about the infrastructure context and the needs of communities.
We are debating this bill in the context of an infrastructure crisis in our country. The infrastructure deficit in Canada is estimated at $150 billion. The AFN estimates that the infrastructure deficit in indigenous communities alone is at least $30 billion, and we have this deficit in the face of a global climate crisis that is pounding our country. Communities are feeling the effects more and more every year, and the damage and the implications for our infrastructure are only going to get more severe as time goes on, so this is a very important topic to be discussing.
I would also note that the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities just recently tabled a report in the House with a single recommendation: to abolish the Canada Infrastructure Bank altogether. The bill we are talking about today proposes a different route. It proposes to reform the enabling legislation so that the Canada Infrastructure Bank can recover from its many failings and troubled track record, and meet the infrastructure needs of Canadian communities.
I thought perhaps we could go back to the origins of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, because I think it is very illustrative and speaks to the strategy that the Liberal government has tried to employ in addressing infrastructure. Of course, this all started with a meeting at the glitzy Shangri-La Hotel in Toronto, where the Prime Minister invited the who's who of private capital. I believe Blackrock even wrote the PowerPoint presentation for the government at that meeting. The promise was a simple one: that public infrastructure could be used as an opportunity to deliver private returns of 6% to 7% for these investors. Of course, that was a promise that this government has not been able to deliver on, I would say thankfully.
Early in the bank's five-year history, it tried to get a pilot project going in the small community of Mapleton, Ontario, to prove that its vision of public-private partnerships and using public infrastructure as a private-profit opportunity could work for communities of all sizes. Mapleton had a very important waste-water and drinking-water project that it needed funding for. The bank came in. It put $20 million on the table, and promoted the approach of bringing in a private investor to deliver these critical public amenities at a profit.
I come from a community not dissimilar in size to Mapleton, so I know how important those conversations are. Members of that municipality engaged in good faith with the bank. They spent a whole bunch of time and a whole bunch of money assessing the risk and value of the approach that the bank was proposing. In the end, they came away and said, “The risk is too great, the value is not there, and it is going to cost our taxpayers more”, so they chose to go with a more conventional financing model for that important project. Of course, they were left with legal fees of over $300,000, and at the end of the year ended up posting a significant deficit to which that contributed significantly. The private-public approach that the Infrastructure Bank was touting certainly was not a Shangri-La for the community of Mapleton, Ontario.
At the transport and infrastructure committee, we did a detailed report on the bank's track record to date. We heard from expert witness after expert witness. We heard from academics, unions and communities. Many of them were telling us that this public-private approach to infrastructure results in two things: higher costs for Canadians and longer project timelines and delays.
The PBO, in a recent report, had some very critical words about the track record of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. His report said that, “funding delays are pervasive for public-private infrastructure investors.” This should give us all pause because, of course, we know that we need infrastructure to be delivered in a timely way. Communities are depending on it.
Now the next project, of course, that we are talking about when it comes to the Canada Infrastructure Bank is high-frequency rail. My colleague here from the Bloc spoke a little bit about that project. It is incredibly concerning. The Canada Infrastructure Bank has been a part of the design of that project since the very beginning through the joint project office, so we are talking about high-frequency rail on Canada's busiest passenger rail corridor from Toronto to Quebec City.
This is a very important infrastructure project. Canada is way behind the rest of the world when it comes to rail transportation. The Liberal government insists that it has to be a part of this model, this failed model of bringing in private investors. Back in March, it put out an expression of interest for a private partner to design, construct and operate passenger rail on that critical passenger corridor between Toronto and Quebec City. Going back to the expression of interest documents, there is a very telling statement saying, “the Private Partner is expected to receive income from the farebox and other ancillary income.... These combined revenues will be used to pay for operating expenses, to service debt and to provide equity returns”.
This passenger rail corridor contributes a huge amount of revenue to Via Rail, Canada's public passenger rail provider. What is going to happen to Via Rail when the Liberal government hands over this busy passenger corridor to a private investor? We can look to the U.K. In the U.K., the House of Commons Library just tabled a report on rail privatization in that country. They found that, since rail was privatized in 1995, the cost to passengers has gone up 20% in real dollars.
Again, we are seeing evidence that this approach of trying to deliver private profits using public infrastructure has to be paid for somewhere. It is going to come out of someone's pocket, and the pockets it will come out of are those of the users of that infrastructure, the people who need to use the train to get to where they need to go, the people who need to use the infrastructure every day. We are very concerned that that project is not going to deliver what Canadians need. It is an important opportunity. We cannot take that risk.
I talked a little bit about the failings of the bank. I do not want to belabour that. I could easily use up 10 minutes just going through all of the many critiques in the media and the evidence that we heard at committee. However, the reality is that we have to get this right. We have to get the infrastructure right. That is why this bill is so important.
This bill goes into the enabling legislation for the Canada Infrastructure Bank and it does four key things. The first would be to replace the mandate of leveraging private capital and delivering private profits. It would replace that mandate with a focus on rural, remote and indigenous communities because we know that their infrastructure needs are so huge right across this country. The second would be to explicitly set out the mandate of the bank to focus on responding and tackling the climate emergency, which is probably the biggest threat to Canadian infrastructure that we face. The third would be to reform the governance of the bank so there would be indigenous representation. That is important, I think, for any of our institutions, but particularly for one that is going to focus on the needs of indigenous communities. The fourth would require the bank to report regularly to this place, so we can have accountability and ensure that the bank does not suffer from the many failings and shortcomings that we have seen over the past five years.
I represent northwest B.C. It is entirely a rural and remote part of this country. There are so many communities that have critical infrastructure needs, from the village of Klemtu, which needs to replace its power lines, to the Heiltsuk, where they need to build a governance building. They also have an ambitious climate action plan. Smithers has waste water and drinking water projects that need to be built. In Takla and so many other indigenous communities, they are struggling to build housing. There is shoreline erosion in communities such as Old Massett. Skidegate has waste water needs, and Prince Rupert, one of the biggest cities in the part of the world that I represent, has an infrastructure deficit in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Communities need this bill. They need the Infrastructure Bank to succeed. I appreciate having had the time to speak to how that might be done.
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Madam Speaker, I am here today to speak to Bill C-245, an act to amend the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act. I want to thank the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski for bringing this bill forward. I am very proud to stand in the House to speak in support of it.
The bill looks at something that is fundamentally important. It would take the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act and change it to focus on things that matter. The thing that matters most right now in this country is addressing the realities of climate change.
It is on the record since 2016 that I am not in support of the Infrastructure Bank. I am tired of seeing public money going to support private infrastructure and making the wealth of those few grow while the rest of us struggle. To me, it just makes sense that we have profound support and input into public ownership of public infrastructure, especially as we take on the crisis of climate change. If we are going to be serious about addressing this issue, we need to look at how we are going to adapt and respond in local communities, and make sure that those areas are recognized. We do not see that happening in this country right now under the leadership of the Liberals.
I come from a large rural riding, and one of the biggest challenges is transportation. A lot of people in my communities have to take one or two ferries and drive a long distance to get to the health care supports they need. There is very little support for bus services or for looking at how we are going to get people from one place to another in a safe and affordable way. This continues to be a massive concern and one that this bill addresses. This bill looks at the reality that more needs to be done, and it looks at taking the priorities of the Infrastructure Bank and supporting communities.
In the last Parliament, I put forward Motion No. 53. That motion talked about the fact that we are not seeing enough sustainable funding and resources going to smaller communities across the country to respond to the changes that we are seeing in the climate.
We are also not seeing funding to support adaptation to, and mitigation of, what is happening in the climate, or to address the issue of making sure there is sustainable employment in our areas. We need to have the climate addressed by local solutions. The people in communities and regions know what they know, and what they know often works. My motion, similar to this bill, also brought forward the idea of making sure that at every step, we acknowledge and recognize UNDRIP and look at following the leadership of indigenous communities across the country. We need the voices of rural and remote communities, and of indigenous communities, to actually be heard because they are on the front lines. As we look at what is happening in our country, we see that they are on the front lines of climate change and its impacts.
I live in B.C. Our region is seeing the impacts of climate change significantly. Last year, we saw heat domes that killed so many because we were not prepared for that level of heat in our region. We saw excessive and extreme flooding that wiped out whole highways and made areas inaccessible. We actually had to have the military fly in and take out people who were stranded in their vehicles. They could not get out because those areas were completely destroyed. We have seen forest fires eliminate a whole community and threaten so many more. This is the new reality that we are living in today, and it concerns me greatly because it is expensive and it is threatening our way of life.
What is frustrating to me as well is the fact that we are not seeing the level of action that we need to see from the current government. For the past six years, the Prime Minister has pretended to care about the climate crisis, but at the same time his government has looked at raising subsidies for oil companies. They are higher now than they were under former Prime Minister Harper. Over $4.5 billion in public money was used to buy a pipeline, and we do not even know where that is going to end.
Canada has the most GHG emissions per capita in the G7. Greenhouse gases emitted by the government have increased by 11%, and Canada is the only G7 country where GHG emissions have increased since the Paris Agreement: so much for our Prime Minister standing in that place saying that Canada is back. We are not back. We are not doing what we need to do to invest in a future that is safer for our children, and we are not investing in a future that leads us to opportunity for business and growth, because the future will be dealing with the climate. We have already pushed things that far.
It is time for action. It is time for a vision, and this bill addresses these very important issues. We need solutions that focus on growing and sustaining the wealth of everyday Canadians and not just the top 1%. One part I spoke of earlier that is so pivotal to this bill is following the leadership of indigenous communities in this country.
The first people of this country need to be at every single table, and this bill would assure that this is the reality. We need to listen to those voices, we need to listen to traditional knowledge and we need to accept that there is a long history of awareness in regions all over Canada that only indigenous voices can bring to the table.
We also have to acknowledge that, when it comes to adapting to climate change, indigenous communities are largely underfunded for basic infrastructure. I think of the Dzawada'enuxw in my riding up in Kingcome. It is a very remote community. They have been facing immense flooding from the river for multiple years, and they have been very clear that they need an access road so they can get to the ocean in case the community floods, as it has. I want members to understand that they have been building their houses up every year to address the fact that their whole community is being flooded, and all they need is a road so that a boat can come to get them. Right now, their only solution is to stand and wait for a helicopter to land on a pad, which means only a few people can be taken out at a time. This leads to higher risk, and we do not see any support in that. Exactly what this bill would say is that we need to address these issues.
I live in, work in and serve communities that are small, rural and indigenous, and I will tell members that the leaders of those communities are often working very hard with their staff to write the proposals and do the work that needs to be done so they can get the support they need. Often, when they are trying to find the resources to do those key things they do not have them, and the complex processes do not acknowledge the different sizes of communities.
This bill really would open the door for these communities to have a voice. We know there is $35 billion in the Canada Infrastructure Bank. This is so important, because we need to start addressing these really important issues.
I think I will end there. All I can say is that this bill would make a difference for communities trying their best to adapt to a climate that is going to win. If we do not take action soon, we are going to see devastation, and all of us will have to take a part of that responsibility.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to see you today, as always, and it is very interesting to debate Bill C-245 and the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
The bank is a newly designed institution. It has only been around for a few years and, even though it is still in its infancy, there is already talk about a lack of transparency and changes to the management approach and the board of directors. This institution has hardly been around for any time at all and we are already talking about the many problems with it.
The Bloc Québécois's position has always been clear. This bank never should never have existed, for the very simple reason that we did not need it. To date, the bank has basically been a failure, not because it did not fund any projects, but because it failed to do its job properly and to ensure that projects were carried out. To understand why the bank makes no sense, we need to look back at the past.
Let us go back to 2015. The current Prime Minister was on the campaign trail. He said that there was an economic slowdown and that we had to invest, in particular in infrastructure, since it was urgent that we help Quebec, the provinces and municipalities.
When things are urgent, the thing to do is to sit down with partners and finance projects. However, the government’s Liberal reflexes took over. It decided that, instead of taking action, it would waste time: It would create a new institution with various layers of public servants and invest in a big machine in Ottawa instead of delivering for Canadians.
That was what it announced in the 2015 electoral campaign and again in 2016. In 2017, the bank was legislated into being. However, it was still not in operation, and it was finally up and running when the economy was no longer in a slowdown.
So far, they have not learned from their mistakes. Since then, we have had a pandemic and another slowdown. The bank has not changed since then, and has not met its objectives. The government is once again behind in its projects. This is an example of poor service delivery and an inappropriate investment vehicle.
With his banker’s mentality, the finance minister at the time, Mr. Morneau, said that taxpayers would benefit. He said that the bank would drive job creation and economic development and that, for every dollar invested by taxpayers, it would draw four, five or six dollars in investments from the private sector. It was supposed to be a windfall.
Finally, nothing much happened, except for a few small projects that could very well have been financed more quickly using other methods, such as bilateral agreements.
If we look at the three-year growth plan of the Canada Infrastructure Bank, we can see that, by 2028, $2.5 billion will be invested in clean energy. We have a list of emergencies. At the same time, the Liberals tabled a budget in which they plan to invest—surprise, surprise—$2.5 billion a year, and not by 2028, in dirty energy. They are investing $2.5 billion in clean energy through the Canada Infrastructure Bank with their right hand and doing five times worse with their left.
That is what we call an inconsistent government. The Liberals are investing $1 in clean energy and $5 in dirty energy, and then they will tour the country this summer saying that oil is green. That is our federal government for you. They are investing $2.5 billion in broadband connectivity projects. The digital transition should have accelerated during the pandemic but, because we were wasting time with the Canada Infrastructure Bank, we were unable to speed up the process.
They are also investing $2 billion in building upgrades. These projects are closest to those on the ground, closest to the people, while the federal government is the level of government farthest from the people. The government thinks it is smart to invest like that.
There were a few good projects. I know that the hon. member for Winnipeg North will be talking about zero-emission vehicles. There were also good projects in Ontario, but that is not enough.
Here is what the Liberals did: They made a list of emergencies and created a huge bank. After years of wasting time, the projects were not carried out in time. However, the Liberals told us that they were urgent. Today, when we look at the institution’s performance, we can see that all of this was so urgent that they did not meet their commitments. That is exactly what happened with the bank.
No one can ask us to like the Canada Infrastructure Bank, because we like our people, we like Quebec, we like our infrastructure projects and we like our economy. That is why we do not like the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
Today, we are in a situation where they will try to meet their targets. They have money to spend and they have to meet their targets. They are looking for projects, because there are not enough of them.
I will give the same example as the Liberal member just gave, namely the famed high-frequency rail line between Quebec City and Windsor. This is not a high-speed train. It is a bad project. Everyone wants a high-speed train, but everyone is resigned to never getting anything from the federal government. We will therefore get a tortoise that passes by twice as often and we will be told that it is a great project.
The project, which is supported by the Canada Infrastructure Bank, will prove to be a bad risk for taxpayers and a good risk for the private sector. The project’s sponsor, VIA Rail, has decided that we should privatize the public infrastructure in the profitable corridor. However, the key mission of the government, that is to say, projects that provide a public return, will be paid for by taxpayers. They will privatize the good part and leave the bad part for the taxpayers.
Things are so bad that, in the last budget, the Liberals had to set aside $400 million in public funding for the project. We asked public servants what was going to happen with the $400 million and they said it would be used to find partners for the train project. I do not know of any functioning bank that has so few projects or friends, or that operates so poorly that it has to invest that kind of money to find partners. When you have to spend $400 million to find friends, maybe you need to change the way you do things.
The same is true for the REM light rail project. It did not need the Canada Infrastructure Bank. Normally, this would have been a Quebec government project. Investissement Québec would have bought shares, and the federal government would have helped. It would have been done quickly and properly, in a bilateral manner. We have a loan for the REM here, but this could have been done more efficiently without the new layer of administration in the federal government.
That is quite the bank we have. It is slow and does not meet its objectives. The Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the Bank of Canada would likely never be able to disburse the $35 billion it has to spend by 2028. There is now a $19-billion discrepancy. This is $19 billion for emergencies, according to the Liberals, that will never be used to meet the needs on the ground for the people who really need infrastructure. The bank does not work.
Now, if we are going to have a bad bank, we might as well improve the way it operates. That is why Bill C-245 is interesting. There is a lack of transparency in the management of these funds and in the reporting to the House. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that the Canada Infrastructure Bank did not provide information or respond when his office tried to evaluate its performance, on the grounds that it was keeping trade secrets confidential. The bank is becoming like Export Development Canada, which is one of the major funders of oil projects in Canada and which also hides behind supposed trade secrets.
Another positive aspect of the bill is that it requires that the board of directors include indigenous and Inuit members. The idea behind this is that we are our own best advocates. This proves that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is not listening to people on the ground, and that is the least of it. I would be surprised if the Liberals did not support this bill for that reason.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank was supposed to be a miracle. My grandfather, and I am sure many others, used to say that if something looks too good to be true, it likely is neither good nor true.
The federal government is capable of meddling in Quebec's affairs. It has been no better at delivering infrastructure through its Canada Infrastructure Bank than at managing passports, airport services, unconditional health transfers or the temporary foreign worker program, as Quebec and the provinces have been calling for.
This is a reminder that Quebec must be in charge of its infrastructure projects, that the federal government needs to be smaller and that it needs to provide the money to Quebec and the provinces.
As Quebec's national holiday approaches, I want to take this opportunity to remind members how important it is for Quebec to have all of its revenue and resources and that it be the master of its own destiny. This bank serves as a reminder that Quebec must be free. Vive le Québec libre.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to rise on Bill C-245, especially after about three hours of sleep due to a late flight. Thanks Air Canada. I wish we were debating something about Air Canada. I am in the mood for that right now.
Bill C-245 would nominally change Canada's failed Infrastructure Bank from a colossal, failed boondoggle that is wasting taxpayers' money to a potentially massive failure that is also wasting taxpayers' money but in a different way and under different leadership.
Bill C-245 wants to change infrastructure investment to something that is in the public interest and relates to climate change mitigation or adaptation, except we already basically have a department for that. It is called Infrastructure Canada. The idea is that we are going to take $35 billion from the failed Infrastructure Bank, move it from one failed institution and hand it over to another poorly led institution.
It reminds me a bit of the even-steven Seinfeld episode where Jerry Seinfeld always ends up even at the end of the day. He gains a friend and loses a friend. He takes $20 out of his pocket and throws it out the window, then grabs a jacket and finds $20. That is all this is. We are shuffling things from one failed department to another failed department.
We have immense problems at Infrastructure Canada. The old PBO, Jean-Denis Fréchette, who is retired now and beekeeping, and I wish him well, noted often that billions could not be found from infrastructure spending. The 2018 PBO report showed the federal government was able to reduce its deficit in 2018, which is shocking, I know. It is almost heresy for the government. However, that was only because it did not spend the infrastructure money that was set aside.
I want to read a quote from the PBO report:
The PBO has published 4 reports regarding [Infrastructure Canada]. Our previous findings indicated that data gaps existed in the tracking of federal money; planned spending lagged; job creation and economic growth was lower than anticipated; and, increases in federal spending were partly offset by decreases in provincial money.
There is limited evidence that increased federal money resulted in increased provincial spending (while federal...transfers increased by $1 billion...overall provincial [transfers] decreased by $733 million).
The Senate did a report on infrastructure spending, and it said that the only measurement for success for all this spending on infrastructure was not actual results. It was not whether it actually helped the economy. Was it whether it helped the environment? No. Was it about productivity improvements? No. The only measurement of success the Senate was able to find for Infrastructure Canada was whether dollars were spent. This bill wants another $35 billion spent by the same people, who just want to spend the money, and the only metric of success is spending the money, not achieving results.
This is right from GC InfoBase on the Treasury Board's website on results: In 2021, Infrastructure Canada only achieved 25% of its goals for 2020-21. If we think about that, this bill wants to add $35 billion more to Infrastructure Canada to not achieve targets.
I have some of the missed targets for Infrastructure Canada. Again, this is right from the government's website, GC InfoBase. It missed out on the value of infrastructure spending. It failed to achieve its goal on projects that it was committed to. Here is a good one: It failed in its goal on changes in GDP, or increases in GDP attributed to spending. Again, what is the point of spending all this money when it is failing on its goals? Now it wants to add another $35 billion.
There is another good one, and the NDP should be interested, especially given where the riding of the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski is. The Liberals failed on the percentage spent toward clean drinking water and percentage spent on improving transit. Again, these failures from the government and failures on infrastructure are certainly telling us we should not be moving money from this failed boondoggle to another group that shows it can fail quite spectacularly. There is another good one: The Liberals actually failed on their projects for reducing GHG emissions.
That is Infrastructure Canada. Let us move on to the other half of our Laurel and Hardy pairing, the Infrastructure Bank. The Infrastructure Bank, when we look at it, is certainly in the competition for the most inept government department.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank has a lot of competition for this top ranking, including of course PSPC, Public Services and Procurement Canada, which has managed to bungle the jet fighter procurement and the ship procurement. We found out about its buying 100 million dollars' worth of vaccines that went to waste.
Another runner-up is, again, Public Services and Procurement Canada, on Phoenix. It has been six and a half years since the Liberals pushed the start button on Phoenix and we are still dealing with that.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank is in a tight race for the most incompetent with the CRA. Of course, this was before it started taking people three hours to finally get through to a CRA agent only to have the agent hang up on them. During the pandemic, the CRA managed to send CERB cheques to dead people and send cheques overseas.
Of course, recently, number one or number two would be Global Affairs. Despite Russia committing genocide, murdering children and women and targeting civilians, Global Affairs sent a top official to the Russian embassy tea party last week.
Service Canada, of course, wants to be recognized for its incompetence with respect to passports. We gave it months of notice. I rose in this same seat several months ago with respect to the complaints. The health minister got up and commented on how hard the staff were working. We found out that two-thirds of them are still sitting at home. They may be working from home, but probably not as efficiently as is needed to get passports to Canadians.
Rounding that out with another competitor, we have CATSA through Transport Canada, which ironically oversees the Canada Infrastructure Bank. With respect to the results of its departmental plan, through the public accounts we found out that one-quarter of CATSA funding for screeners had lapsed. It kept all the bureaucrats working, but not the screeners, the ones who are hired on contract to take a look at and screen the luggage that goes through, a vitally important cog in the scheme of airports. Twenty-five per cent of that lapsed, even though in January, February and March, the final three months of the fiscal year, the department produced numbers that very clearly showed that the number of Canadians being screened was growing exponentially. I think at one point it was within 70% of prepandemic numbers, but the department let the money lapse and let the screeners stay at home. Then we found out, just last week, that the department was unprepared for the increase. It had actually released its own numbers showing exponential growth in air travel, but it was caught unawares.
Apparently, the government was also caught unawares with respect to Service Canada and passports. Who would have known 10 years ago that a 10-year passport would be expiring at this time? I certainly would not have expected a 10-year passport to expire in 10 years. Who would have possibly known that we would see an increase in travel with the pandemic? The government said it was caught off guard.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank, knowing it had tough competition, doubled down for the goal of most incompetent government department. It has been over five years and it does not have a single project built. One more year, and the Canada Infrastructure Bank will be eligible for an MP pension. Like most MPs, it also has not done much in five years. There has been $35 billion into the Canada Infrastructure Bank, and nothing has been completed. One year it actually spent more money on termination benefits for executives than on salaries in its own department. The Canada Infrastructure Bank was set up to guarantee decent returns for large for-profit companies and investment firms, not to look after Canadian taxpayers. Those companies would be guaranteed profits, while the taxpayers would be guaranteed any risks or losses.
The main project the Canada Infrastructure Bank is so proud of, the urban rail project in Montreal, has been a disaster, which is no surprise. People do not want it. The actual construction does not look at all like the design. The cost has been $7 billion and growing, and this is its best product.
I understand the intent of the bill, but I have to say it is rather silly to take money from one failed government department to give it to another failed government department. Therefore, I will not be supporting it.
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Mr. Speaker, after two years hampered by a global pandemic, Canadians are starting to rebuild. Communities large and small across the country are looking to a brighter, sustainable and inclusive future.
The Government of Canada is committed to bolstering that rebuild. The Canada Infrastructure Bank is playing an important role in that effort. The bank's innovative approach is empowering the work by provinces, municipalities and indigenous communities to bring key projects to fruition. It is doing so, from planning to design to delivery, with the added benefit of a reduced reliance on public dollars.
By leveraging the expertise and capital of private and institutional investors, the Canada Infrastructure Bank brings its investment, advisory and know-how to all orders of government, including indigenous investment partners. This is a partnership that is transforming how infrastructure is planned, funded and delivered to Canadians.
That means bringing innovative financing tools to the table. It means getting more projects built. It means advancing Canada's demonstrated success in leveraging public-private partnership, or P3, models to bring better trade and transportation, public transit and green infrastructure to Canadians, and to further broadband connectivity, develop clean power and support indigenous projects.
The G20 and OECD have for several years encouraged countries to promote more long-term private investment in infrastructure. Moreover, there are large pools of private and institutional capital available for investment, including our pension funds, that are looking to support long-term public policy priorities. The Canada Infrastructure Bank works to attract this capital to help address public policy objectives in the infrastructure space, particularly in projects that generate revenue, such as transit fares, electricity rates and other forms of revenues that support service delivery and provide the underpinning of the new innovative financing structures.
These influential organizations are now looking to Canada as a global leader in advancing the P3 model and the next generation of innovative financing and partnerships with the private sector. Stakeholders are watching and learning as the Canada Infrastructure Bank moves to deliver on its important mandate.
To date, the Canada Infrastructure Bank is actively involved in 33 projects, including the commitment of over $6.8 billion in capital, while attracting over $7.2 billion in private and institutional investment. This investment is making a real difference for projects such as rural broadband in Manitoba, zero-emission buses in communities across the country and energy retrofits in Quebec with the Société de financement et d’accompagnement en performance énergétique.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank is also supporting the advancement of key projects such as high frequency rail, helping to find innovative ways to transition Atlantic Canada off coal through clean power transmission with the Atlantic Loop, and supporting Manitoba fibre's plan to provide broadband access to tens of thousands of additional households and businesses. Realizing these vital projects will mean connecting Canadians, creating good jobs and helping us to reach our climate goals as we navigate a path to net-zero emissions by 2050.
To advance the government's commitment to close the indigenous infrastructure gap and support the prosperity of indigenous communities, the government has set a target for the Canada Infrastructure Bank to invest at least $1 billion in total across its five priority sectors for revenue-generating projects that benefit indigenous people. The Canada Infrastructure Bank has developed and implemented its indigenous community infrastructure initiative, which provides low-cost and long-term debt for indigenous community-based projects.
This initiative is designed to bring results to indigenous communities through projects that can bring greater renewable, sustainable and reliable hydro power to Canada's north and projects that support connections, such as through the maintenance and modernization of Tshiuetin Rail Transportation, the first indigenous-owned and operated railway company in Canada. The Canada Infrastructure Bank is a key resource for driving Canada's recovery and a key partner to investors banking on Canada.
Moreover, since its introduction in 2017, the Canada Infrastructure Bank has succeeded at adapting its role and priorities to respond to evolving circumstances and opportunities, enabling the bank to better support Canada's response to the pandemic and the transition to a low-carbon economy. The Canada Infrastructure Bank has done so under the stewardship of a board of directors that is skilled, bilingual and diverse, a board that benefits from indigenous representation, gender parity and representation from across Canada. Members of the board of directors are appointed through a transparent, merit-based and competitive process.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank represents a crucial conduit for communities, provinces, territories and indigenous partners seeking to get things done for Canadians. It is making a difference by enabling a number of projects to be planned, financed and constructed.
It is an innovative and effective way to spur investment in key projects, to build confidence in our economy after two years of unprecedented challenges and to work with Canadians to ensure a strong, inclusive recovery that works for everyone. It is a crucial resource to promote improved infrastructure, with a reduced need for public dollars, through collaborative efforts that leverage the expertise of each partner to meet clearly defined public needs through the appropriate allocation of resources, risks and rewards.
For Canadians this is a win-win. It is an arm's-length Crown corporation working co-operatively with all levels of government and indigenous communities to facilitate and accelerate the delivery of high-quality infrastructure through new and innovative investment models. Also, through the Canada Infrastructure Bank's innovative financial tools, it is a means to reduce the burden on taxpayers and constrained government budgets, while expanding private sector investment and promoting innovation.
It is working for investors, workers and communities. It is working for Canadians.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an all-too-sad reality that in fact climate change disproportionately affects indigenous communities. Of course, I will continue to work with all indigenous communities, including York Factory, on making sure their infrastructure is resilient and, as we rebuild and replace infrastructure, that it meets the climate challenges we are all facing together.
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Mr. Speaker, York Factory First Nation has lost its lifeline, its ferry, for longer than expected. The community is now isolated and needs immediate assistance. It also needs an all-weather road. Climate change is already wreaking havoc here, as the ground-breaking report from the Canadian Climate Institute indicates. Urgent federal action is needed now across our north, including by building all-weather roads.
My bill, Bill C-245, supports this work. Will the Liberals invest in all-weather road access for York Factory and support my bill to invest in our communities that are on the front lines of climate change?
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The time provided for the consideration of Private Members' Business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the Order Paper.
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Madam Speaker, last fall, devastating rain and floods in British Columbia exposed how dependent we are on public infrastructure for the free movement of goods and people. Stable and robust public infrastructure ensures access to employment, food, medicines and the essentials that keep us and the economy running. The inability to easily move in and out of the Lower Mainland of B.C. for just a few weeks had a harrowing impact on people, businesses and industry. As livestock and crops were lost, so too was infrastructure. Sections of major connector roads were washed away, bridges destroyed and dikes failed, due to a lack of adequate maintenance and upgrades. This was the reality of just one extreme weather event.
Last year, B.C. was just another canary in the coal mine for Canada and the world with floods, droughts, heat domes and wildfires all happening in the same year within kilometres of each other. These incidents of communities losing so much is because of climate change. Black swan events are no longer a rarity, and they highlight the urgency of addressing climate change now.
Monday's report from the IPCC on climate mitigation was clear that limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels is all but out of reach without massive and immediate emissions cuts. While the federal government focuses on targets 10 and 20 years out, it is missing the other side of the equation: our local communities. People are suffering now on the front lines of climate change.
Across Canada, the past generation of public infrastructure is failing and is in urgent need of upgrading. New infrastructure must be built to specifications that will withstand today's and tomorrow's climate realities. However, local governments are struggling to fund these competing priorities with their limited tax base. They rely on other levels of government to assist through unpredictable grants, but what they really need is long-term, stable and predictable investment from the federal government to build the next generation of resilient infrastructure.
This reality is magnified in northern and indigenous communities. These are some of the hardest hit by the effects of climate change, and they have been left to fend for themselves after decades of inadequate federal investment and even the most basic of infrastructure. This long-standing inequity in infrastructure investment has led to a chronic lack of housing, inadequate water and waste-water treatment plants and a dependence on diesel with no access to other energy resources.
These communities have been abandoned for far too long.
As my NDP colleague, the member for Nunavut, said yesterday, in her riding there is a need for 3,000 homes, but the government has only committed to building 100. That is 100 homes in a territory that needs 3,000.
The current infrastructure funding model is obviously not working for indigenous and northern communities. The way the federal government allocates limited infrastructure funds to indigenous and northern communities, often on a year-by-year basis, has never been appropriate. This leaves them at a disadvantage and unable to do critical, long-term planning.
Indigenous and northern communities have waited too long for safe housing, clean water, broadband, public transportation and reliable roads. In places like St. Theresa Point in northern Manitoba, for example, the community is isolated and inaccessible by land 80% of the year. As Chief Flett tells us, their community needs more public infrastructure to enhance community services and to ensure all-weather access. Without public roads and publicly funded infrastructure to move goods in and out all year round, we can imagine what the price of food and other essential goods is in that community.
It is time for federal infrastructure to live up to the times, and the NDP have solutions. One of them is to reinvent the Canada Infrastructure Bank to make it work for people living on the front lines of the climate crisis.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank was set up to build infrastructure, yet in five years it has built none. Zero projects have been completed. The Parliamentary Budget Officer has noted that the CIB is not meeting its own goals. Other critics have said that privatizing infrastructure projects through private-public partnerships does not work for workers or communities because these projects are focused on investor profits.
The Infrastructure Bank adds no value to communities today. It is broken. Based on a failed P3 model, the bank cannot attract the investments it promised. This Crown corporation is currently being run under a model that has been proven to cost governments and people more.
Bill C-245 would use the Infrastructure Bank for good. By removing the for-profit corporate cronyism and instead investing in public infrastructure, this is an opportunity to make immediate and critical infrastructure investments across Canada, with a focus on indigenous and northern communities. We need investments in housing, roads, clean energy and water and waste water plants, all while fighting against climate change. This bill would ensure that decision-makers from first nation, Métis and Inuit communities are on the board so that infrastructure projects meet the needs of their communities. This bill would also increase transparency, with regular reporting so that the $35 billion in the CIB goes to projects that support communities facing the climate crisis instead of padding the pockets of wealthy Liberal insiders.
The House has the opportunity right now to commit to indigenous and northern communities that it will harness a public ownership model for the next generation of infrastructure. When this bill is enacted, it will finally put the Canada Infrastructure Bank to work, something that has not happened since its inception.
The power of a reinvented Canada Infrastructure Bank will explicitly support climate change adaptation and mitigation in the most underfunded communities, the communities most at risk of climate change. With this bill, the Infrastructure Bank would be more equitable and transparent and would ensure that indigenous and northern communities can plan for the long term with stable, reliable infrastructure funding. It would ensure the $35-billion Canada Infrastructure Bank lives up to the times.
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Madam Speaker, today we are debating Bill C-245, introduced by my NDP colleague. To begin with, this bill deserves to be debated at the very least.
Bill C‑245 amends the Canada Infrastructure Bank Act. Before explaining why we might want to amend that piece of legislation, we should perhaps start by understanding what the Canada Infrastructure Bank is and where it came from.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank was created in 2016 through legislation introduced by former finance minister Bill Morneau. The idea was to get money from the private sector to finance infrastructure that would normally be public infrastructure.
Former finance minister Morneau came from the high finance world of Bay Street. It is no coincidence that the head office of the Canada Infrastructure Bank is in Toronto, as is the head office of the family-owned and highly profitable Morneau Shepell.
The government had some interesting discussions with all kinds of groups, superwealthy people and global figures in high finance, telling them that it could put lots of public money at their disposal, so they could complete more infrastructure projects and earn more profits. They found that interesting.
When the government saw how happy they were, it thought it had done a great job and could earn plenty of money by making lots of investments. It had some delusions of grandeur. The government thought the whole world was going to come and invest here, that all of our beautiful infrastructure would be privatized with public money, thereby filling its coffers. It was ready to brag about all the investments this would generate. That was basically the idea.
The government then handed out $35 billion for these folks to invest in all kinds of projects. It hoped to get four to five times the amount invested from the private sector, so a $35-billion investment would have generated $175 billion in private investment.
It was a dismal failure. Here we are in 2022, still waiting for that influx of cash from the private sector. Meanwhile, federal infrastructure continues to disintegrate. In the regions, there are ports where boats can no longer be moored, reservoirs that no longer hold water, military bases with dilapidated buildings and crooked, rusty fences. That is the state of federal infrastructure in this country.
Instead of investing where money was needed, the government decided to give money to the private sector, which would then go find great projects. That whole idea, giving the private sector money to go find great projects, never really materialized.
What actually happened was that public organizations took the money from the Canada Infrastructure Bank to invest in projects. In Quebec, we saw things like the Caisse de dépôt et placement investing in the REM light rail project and other projects at the Montreal airport or the Port of Montreal.
There were also projects with cities and public transit agencies to fund buses. Some regions got funding for Internet access, and even irrigation networks in Alberta got money. All those projects seem to make sense.
Why create the Canada Infrastructure Bank to fund projects that essentially could have been carried out and funded in other ways? It is because, originally, the Canada Infrastructure Bank was supposed to fund the private sector. There is something a bit schizophrenic there. What is actually happening is not what was supposed to happen.
At the end of the day, I would say I am a bit pleased about this, but not too much. I think that the Conservatives, on the other side of the House, are very frustrated and disappointed because they would have preferred the former PPP Canada Crown corporation that was kind of the predecessor to the Canada Infrastructure Bank. PPP Canada did not have the fancy title, but it had the same objectives, namely to privatize the country's infrastructure. The Canada Infrastructure Bank goes even further: instead of privatizing only federal infrastructure, it aims to privatize all infrastructure.
The Canada Infrastructure Bank targets all infrastructure, municipal and provincial, no matter where it is. We cannot forget that. What it means is that instead of funding projects that are in the public interest, the bank funds projects that have the potential to make money for the private sector. The public interest is no longer the priority. The idea of an infrastructure project that should serve the public good is being distorted.
This bank seriously lacks transparency. It is a nice Crown corporation, and when it starts a project, poof, all is settled. It is as though it becomes a federal project, bypassing all provincial, municipal or environmental laws. It does what it wants, how it wants, and when it wants. The private sector loves that too.
There is clearly a lack of transparency. What is worse, this organization is not subject to the Access to Information Act. We have no idea what goes on there. Information about executive compensation is secret. No one knows who gets paid how much. Basically, we only know that people are well paid.
Not that long ago, the Parliamentary Budget Officer spoke about this at committee. He stated that even his enquiries went unanswered. It is not just MPs or the public that do not get any answers from the bank. Even the Parliamentary Budget Officer cannot get an answer. He should have access to any information he needs, but that is not the case.
The excuse the bank gave him for not providing any information was that it was confidential commercial information. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer is authorized to receive confidential information. The bank is refusing to disclose confidential information to an organization that is authorized to receive it. That is quite something. Given that the PBO has this authorization, if he were to receive the information, he would go through it and not publish anything that should not be disclosed. He would use his judgment to avoid compromising the security of this information. He would maintain its confidentiality, but it seems that the bank sees things differently. Clearly, the government agrees with the bank, because it has never forced the bank in any way to provide the requested information.
That brings me to the NDP's bill. I hope I have enough time to unpack that. The goal of the NDP's bill is to eliminate the private sector from the Canada Infrastructure Bank's mission. That could work. The bill would also have the bank receive unsolicited proposals. That means it could get slightly out-of-the-box proposals from people who think their project is a good idea, which the bank would then have to assess the merits of. That could work too. The bill states that priority should be given to northern projects, projects put forward by indigenous nations, infrastructure projects aimed at mitigating or adapting to climate change, and projects that are not harmful to the environment. Those are all good things. We see no problem there. The bill states that the membership of the board must include three people representing the interests of the Inuit, first nations and the Métis, respectively.
Another interesting aspect is the requirement to annually submit a report to the minister on the bank's activities and investments to give an account of what is happening there. At the moment, we do not know. It is a state secret, apparently. We do not know what goes on at the bank at all, except when it makes a public announcement. The report would also be tabled in Parliament once a year.
We do not see much in the bill that really concerns us, that really makes us want to tear our hair out. On the contrary, it could make this monster a little less awful. That is part of the problem, though. That is what the NDP does not understand. The Canada Infrastructure Bank is basically a huge federal intrusion into provincial jurisdictions. Some 98% of public infrastructure is provincial or municipal infrastructure, and the bank is sticking its nose into that, instead of just transferring money or cutting taxes. No, the federal government just has to stick its nose into everything. That is the fundamental problem with this bank.
This is a centralizing government that is always trying to impose its vision, to wade in where it is not wanted and mix things up even further, add stakeholders and complicate matters.
Every dollar in that bank is one dollar too many, and we will continue to fight against it.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity this debate provides to discuss the important issue of stakeholder capitalism.
Fundamental to our current economic system has been the idea of shareholder capitalism, the idea that corporations exist for the specific and narrow purpose of maximizing value for their shareholders. I think it is important to acknowledge that there are legitimate criticisms of this shareholder capitalism model.
When companies only consider the interests of their shareholders, they may end up doing harm to non-shareholders. Questions of morality and long-term sustainability are part of the equation in shareholder capitalism insofar as they impact a company's reputation and bottom line, but insofar as they do not impact the bottom line, they are excluded from consideration. Maybe that presents a problem.
Historically, we have tried to address these harms associated with shareholder capitalism through law, regulation and tax policy, which force companies to internalize social costs. Needless to say, those efforts are never perfect. One increasingly popular response to the potential problems with shareholder capitalism is the proposed alternative model of stakeholder capitalism. I will argue today that stakeholder capitalism is dangerous. It exacerbates the problems of shareholder capitalism and creates new problems of its own.
Stakeholder capitalism is the idea that we should pursue an economic system in which companies seek to maximize value for all stakeholders instead of just their own shareholders. On the face of it, the idea that companies should concern themselves with the social good instead of their own bottom line is obviously intuitively appealing to many people, but we need to go beyond the superficial, nice-sounding platitudes that usually shape the defence of stakeholder capitalism to understand the substantive implications of this radical shift in thinking.
To start with, it is important to understand the history of the idea. Stakeholder capitalism is a new name, but not a new model. In fact, the process of early European colonization was generally affected through large monopolistic companies that were granted charters to trade exclusively in certain areas, partially in exchange for commitments to undertake certain other non-economic actions that were perceived to be in the interests of the home state.
The Hudson's Bay Company and the East India Company were early examples of stakeholder capitalism at work. These companies acted like governments when they were in the field, and they were protected in their undemocratic exercise of political authority by the fact that they took into consideration the interests of their chosen or assigned stakeholders. Of course, they did not take into consideration the interests of all stakeholders, but neither do their modern equivalents.
Today one of the most prominent proponents of stakeholder capitalism is the World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab. Stakeholder Capitalism is his most recent book, and it is explicitly endorsed in the Davos Manifesto. Here in Canada, Mark Carney is a leading advocate and his book Values makes similar arguments to those made by Schwab. Schwab, Carney and the NDP member proposing this bill today have every right to advance a particular set of proposals about how they believe our economy should change, but we should talk about the fact that these ideas have significant unseen consequences.
Generally speaking, though not always, the proponents of stakeholder capitalism come from the political left. The political left has a long track record of critiquing shareholder capitalism, but has generally done so in the context of a broader critique of corporate power. That critique has been that corporations should not be too powerful because they can use their position of power to exploit workers and to push agendas that may be contrary to the democratic will of the people. This is actually a potentially good critique, and many modern conservatives would embrace it, adding as well that too powerful corporations can often use their power to subvert and undermine the market itself.
Conservatives and past versions of left-wing parties have both critiqued powerful monopolistic corporations, but have disagreed about solutions. Left-wing parties have critiqued capitalism itself and pushed for greater state ownership, while conservatives have sought pro-competition and other forms of regulation to ensure that private enterprise can do its job without any single private company having enough power to distort the market or undermine the common good.
Today the parameters of the economic debate have dramatically changed. Today many on the left no longer critique corporate power itself, but simply argue that corporations should be asked to champion progressive or woke causes. The political left now seems fine with large and powerful corporations as long as those corporations are talking about climate change, racial inequality, and trans rights. The left is no longer talking about the problems of corporate power, but about how to use corporate power.
It is very telling that Bill C-245, the bill we are debating tonight and a bill proposed by someone who is arguably one of the most left-wing members of this chamber, is about using corporate power instead of limiting corporate power. She is demonstrating that shift in the thinking of left-wing parties. In particular, Bill C-245 proposes to use the Canada Infrastructure Bank, a Crown corporation, as an ideological tool to shape the kinds of investments that are made in the private sector and to do so with non-economic objectives in minds. This is what stakeholder capitalism has been all about since the colonial era, the use of corporate power to advance ideological objectives that are distinct from shareholder interests.
I believe that modern conservatism must strongly make the case against the kind of stakeholder capitalism championed by this bill and others.
Modern conservatism must take up the arguments against corporate power and recognize that centralized corporate power can be just as dangerous when wielded on behalf of stakeholders as it can be when wielded on behalf of shareholders. We have to defend workers and defend one person, one vote democracy against the idea that corporate power brokers should be the ones defining collective values. This is not an unquestioning defence of shareholder capitalism, which requires appropriate control. It is simply a recognition that the prevailing concept of stakeholder capitalism is worse.
Broadly speaking, I would make three arguments against stakeholder capitalism.
First, an emphasis on stakeholder values is often done insincerely as a branding exercise to mask a lack of real and substantive action on genuinely important issues. It could be used as a basis for claiming that public interest or anti-monopoly regulation is not necessary, even while not moving substantially on the values that are claimed. On this point, I would like to challenge all corporations that have said Black lives matter to say the same about Uighur lives. The NBA, among many others, has figured out that campaigning for racial justice in America is good for their bottom line and campaigning for racial justice in China is bad for their bottom line. However, those who only campaign for racial justice when it is good for their bottom line are not really for racial justice.
Mark Carney, whom I referred to earlier, got himself into hot water for making and then walking back the dubious claim that the half-trillion dollar asset management firm where he works is net zero. I think some members of the House would call that greenwashing. The prevalence of hypocrisy and its potential to distract from real action is one important critique of stakeholder capitalism.
The second critique is that, even when corporations are sincere about championing certain values, encouraging them to identify and then act in the best interests of stakeholders gives companies too much power to make decisions about the common good that they do not have the mandate to make and that are outside of their expertise.
The House decided at one point to ban corporate and union donations to political parties. Why? It was because we determined that corporations should not have a privileged ability to shape public conversations about the common good by funding certain candidates over others. It was recognized that corporations' being able to throw their weight around in politics has a distorting effect on decision-making. However, what is the point of banning corporate and union donations to political parties if we then allow and even encourage those same corporations to use their unique privileges to advance political positions in other ways, by requiring their employees to take courses on progressive ideology, pushing investments toward certain kinds of enterprises or enjoying the privilege of limited liability while participating in explicitly political activity?
I believe that decisions about the goods that a society pursues should be made through democratic competition and debate, not through corporate-directed stakeholder consultations that perpetuate corporate interests and power, even when well intended. The goods that a society prioritizes should be selected on a one person, one vote basis, not on a one share, one vote basis. Even the most generous-hearted corporations necessarily reflect the power of shareholders and management to aggregate feedback from their chosen stakeholders as they make decisions.
A society in which large corporations identify stakeholder values and then push those values is functionally much less democratic than a society in which collective social priorities are identified through open and transparent democratic debate. Again, the corporatized nature of European colonialism should point us to the risks of excessive and unconstrained corporate power, even when corporations are supposed to be responding to certain non-economic, stakeholder-driven imperatives.
My final concern with the stakeholder capitalism model is about the way that it enables government to use corporate action to advance its objective, which is very clear in this bill. Those with regulatory power over corporations can achieve a great deal through the power of suggestion. Corporations understand that they are less likely to face hostile regulation if they are on the same page as governments when it comes to non-economic matters.
If the government tells social media companies to regulate speech or tells banks to deny banking services to certain kinds of people, then it is very much in the interest of those corporations to be helpful. Governments are doing this sort of thing more and more. Stakeholder capitalism provides the intellectual tool kit for governments to ask corporations to use their corporate power in a particular preferred way. In the process, by using corporate power to their advantage, governments can exercise far more power over people's lives than they would otherwise. When the government acts directly, it is subject to scrutiny and accountability mechanisms that do not apply to private corporations. By acting through corporations and using the power of suggestion, governments can achieve preferred outcomes with less scrutiny and accountability.
In general, a world in which political and corporate leaders establish common values and use corporate power alongside state power to push them is less democratic than one in which business sticks to business and common values are identified through democratic debate and advanced by regulators through transparent regulation. In the process, we must preserve a healthy skepticism of corporate power and recognize that a functioning capital system is one in which no single player dominates the field.
Instead of using the Canada Infrastructure Bank to push so-called stakeholder values, Conservative believe that we should eliminate the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which has been a failure by any standard. This so-called bank already represents a perverse structure for combining government and corporate interests because it involves the taxpayer assuming the risk associated with private investments.
The genius of a market system is that private actors must bear risk in proportion to their potential gains. The only thing worse than socialism is a policy that privatizes gains while still socializing losses—
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Madam Speaker, infrastructure is such an important topic. When we formed government, there was a significant commitment by the Prime Minister and the Liberal government, for the first time in a long time, to truly invest in infrastructure. I can recall standing in the House talking about historic amounts of money being invested in Canada's infrastructure, and I explained then why that was so important.
One of the features that were over and above the types of investments we were talking about was the idea of the Canada Infrastructure Bank. I believe the Canada Infrastructure Bank will be permanent and will continue on well into the future. Where I am a little disappointed, although not necessarily, and where I ask that additional consideration be given to the idea of this Crown corporation, is with respect to the issue of timing.
The member says, for example, that no projects are under way that have actually been finalized. However, when we do a quick Google search, there is a very quick find right away. We get the City of Brampton, for example. It looks like it will be able to conclude a deal for well over $400 million, which will see 450 zero-emission buses going to that community. I suspect that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is playing a critical role in that.
I think the government has demonstrated its willingness to look at ways in which we can build our infrastructure. Even when we passed the legislation, it was agreed back then that there would be a review of the process and what has taken place. That is supposed to be coming up in 2022, later this year. When we talked about this in its creation, a great deal of time was spent talking about trade and transportation and that infrastructure. Canada is a trading nation.
We talked about public transit, and Brampton is a good example of public transit. We talked about green infrastructure too. This government has talked more about green infrastructure in the last couple of years than the previous prime minister did in 10 years. We can take a look at some of the initiatives using the example of Brampton once again. Broadband connectivity is something on which we have put a great deal of emphasis and would anticipate.
My friend is from northern Manitoba, and I would like to think there are opportunities there. On the idea of clean power, Manitoba can be a great benefactor of clean power, whether it is our hydro developments that use our water or the wind power that is there, all of which take massive amounts of money to build upon. There is also an enormous number of indigenous projects, many of which, if they were acted on and could get financing commitments with infrastructure dollars, would provide more opportunities, whether in building or assisting with community development or even in economic trading opportunities.
I think all of us recognize the importance of infrastructure. That is why, if we go back to late 2015 when we took government, we will find that we had put into place a multi-billion dollar long-term commitment toward building Canada's infrastructure.
The question that I had posed to my friend opposite was with regard to just how severe the need for infrastructure dollars is today. The number of projects is, quite frankly, unbelievable. We have a serious infrastructure deficit. That is something that has not been created over the last few years. It is because of many years of what many would ultimately argue was neglect.
It also speaks to the number of projects, when we look at expanding Canada's economy and our communities and providing a better quality of life, whether in urban centres or rural centres. In other words, it is those new projects. When one thinks of infrastructure, not only is it redoing or rebuilding, it is also the new projects that are there.
There is no shortage of either. That is one of the reasons why, under this administration, we have seen historic amounts of money allocated in every budget this government has provided in the past six years. We have seen record numbers of projects in every region of our country. We have seen allocations going from Ottawa directly through to our municipalities, in the form of gas tax-type transfers.
Driving on some roads in Winnipeg North, I think about this. We see the pits that are dug in order to replace a road. I think of a street like McGregor, for example, or Salter or Selkirk. Those are huge cost factors. Much of the money provided comes from Ottawa to make those projects possible.
When I think of the city of Winnipeg, I think of the Chief Peguis Extension and how critically important that is to the city of Winnipeg, to the province and ultimately, I would argue, to our country. When we think of our international airport and CentrePort, and the hundreds of millions of dollars being invested and the future of thousands of jobs in that area alone, one gets a sense of just how important Chief Peguis Extension is.
That same principle, I am sure, could be argued in every one of my colleagues' constituencies. There is no shortage of ideas out there, or shortage of needs for infrastructure dollars. That is why, as a national government, not only are we providing those badly needed financial resources in historic amounts, but we are also working with municipalities and provinces and, in many ways, allowing them to establish the priorities. They are much more into the community, and they are establishing where those priority needs really are. We would like to be able to contribute wherever we can, whether directly or indirectly.
That is not enough. That is one of the reasons why we brought forward the Canada Infrastructure Bank as a Crown corporation: As a Crown corporation, there is no doubt that many projects would be able to attract additional financial resources, which will hopefully see more projects approved.
Recognizing that there is so much need out there, this government is committed to doing what it can to find financial resources so that we can start building our communities and our economy.
By doing that, we are supporting Canadians in a very real and tangible way, whether as a society in our growth or in our economic development. We are improving the quality of life for all Canadians in all regions.
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Madam Speaker, let me be clear. This monster was created by the Liberal government. It is clear that the bank's very foundations need to be changed.
I believe this is not only possible, but necessary in order to tackle the climate crisis.
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Madam Speaker, I will have the opportunity to comment further on my colleague's bill later on, but when I listened to her speech and when we look at what the CIB really is and what my colleague wants to do with it, I have to wonder whether it is even possible. It is hard to believe that it is, and I wonder if this bill is not somewhat naive.
We will see where the adventure takes us, but it seems to me that a monster has been created, only it is not working and it is not going anywhere, and now there is a suggestion that we can make it palatable.
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Madam Speaker, I want to be clear that this bill would reform one of our Crown corporations, which has a stated objective of addressing the infrastructure crisis in our country, an objective it clearly is not fulfilling. It is sitting on $35 billion, but has not produced any final results to show for it.
What we are saying is this: Let us leverage public investment, along with other levels of government and public institutions, to meet the urgent infrastructure needs, particularly in the face of climate change. Other countries do this kind of work. Canada is way behind, and it is time that we show leadership, including through the effective use of the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
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Madam Speaker, my read of the bill is that it advances a form of stakeholder capitalism. It is the idea that government should seek to promote the idea of corporations advancing green or other sorts of non-economic objectives through the marketplace.
I wonder, as a matter of description, if the member agrees that the bill is advancing a form of stakeholder capitalism and if she believes that we should be advancing stakeholder capitalism as a model.
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