PACP meeting 36 · 2026-04-29 — Committee Evidence — LegisWatch

Summary

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts met to study the Public Accounts of Canada 2024 and 2025, with witnesses Frédéric Duguay, Executive Vice President and Chief Legal and Information Officer, and Steven Robins, Executive Vice President, Portfolio and Strategic Projects, from the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB).

Frédéric Duguay explained that the CIB is a repayable investment tool, not a granting program, making disciplined commercial investments to crowd in private capital and get paid back so funds can be reinvested. He noted that since 2020 the CIB has consistently invested $3 billion to $4 billion annually, has made loans to 108 projects with a total value of $55 billion supporting over 315,000 jobs, and that 11 projects are completed with more expected quarterly. He stated that the CIB has not required government appropriations for operating costs since July 2024, and that its 2026-27 corporate plan was approved by Treasury Board the previous week.

Steven Robins detailed that the CIB works closely with the Major Projects Office to coordinate federal presence on projects and provide financial expertise, citing investments in the port of Montreal's Contrecoeur expansion and Nouveau Monde Graphite as examples. He explained that the CIB's financing is patient, willing to wait for repayment as demand ramps up, and that the $18 billion committed includes over $18 billion in private sector money, with an independent study finding more than four dollars of enabled private investment for every CIB dollar. He also noted that 89 of the 108 projects are under construction, and that the CIB has seen over $600 million flow back from initial investments to offset the need for incremental capital.

In response to a Conservative member's question about the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report, Duguay acknowledged the findings but argued the report did not fully recognize the difference between capital committed at financial close and capital deployed over a project's five-to-six-year construction life cycle. He disagreed with the characterization that two-thirds of partner funding came from public-sector partners, stating the CIB measures a more than 1:1 ratio of private sector capital at financial close.

A Bloc Québécois member questioned the CIB's low investment rate in Quebec relative to its demographic weight and requested a written breakdown of investments by province and territory, which Duguay agreed to provide. The member also asked whether the creation of a sovereign wealth fund indicated a lack of confidence in the CIB, but Duguay declined to comment on the fund, reiterating the CIB's focus on enabling infrastructure for housing.

Another Conservative member asked about the CIB's $8.6 million in bonuses for executives, with 83% of executives receiving an average of almost $200,000, questioning whether this was warranted given only 11 completed projects in nine years. Duguay responded that compensation is benchmarked to the 50th percentile of comparable Crown and private sector corporations and is fully transparent in the annual report.

A Conservative member pressed the witnesses on whether the CIB funded BC Ferries' construction of ferries in China, and asked for a tabled analysis of how many Canadian workers lost economic opportunity as a result. Robins confirmed the CIB provided a loan to BC Ferries but stated that BC Ferries made its own procurement decisions through an international competitive process, and that the CIB does not have a comparison to a hypothetical alternative.

A Liberal member noted that no Canadian firms bid on the BC Ferries contract and asked if the CIB has mechanisms to encourage buying Canadian. Duguay said the CIB follows the buy Canadian procurement policy for its own purchases but that framework does not extend to investment activities, though the CIB encourages proponents to use Canadian suppliers and includes economic benefit analysis in investment decisions.

A Liberal member emphasized that the CIB loans money rather than spending it, and that completed projects are the responsibility of proponents, not the CIB. Robins agreed, noting that 89 projects are under construction and will convert to completed projects over normal construction schedules, and that the CIB's disciplined underwriting ensures repayment.

A Liberal member asked about the economic and employment impact of the CIB's projects. Robins stated that the 89 projects under construction have generated over $40 billion in GDP benefits and support over 315,000 jobs, with downstream benefits including lower power rates and better trade access, citing a port of Prince Rupert export terminal partnership with an indigenous community.

The meeting included brief procedural exchanges about the absence of the Minister of Finance and National Revenue in response to a previous invitation, and about technical issues with seeing witnesses on screen, but no motions or votes were recorded.

AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.

Witnesses · 2

Frédéric Duguay

Executive Vice President and Chief Legal and Information Officer, Canada Infrastructure Bank

Opening remarks

Good afternoon, Chair and honourable members. Thank you for the invitation to address the committee in relation to its consideration of the Public Accounts of Canada 2024 and the Public Accounts of Canada 2025. My name is Frédéric Duguay, and I am the executive vice-president and chief legal and information officer at the Canada Infrastructure Bank, or CIB. I'm joined today by my colleague Steven Robins, the executive vice-president of portfolio and strategic projects. The CIB was created to help get infrastructure projects unstuck and to build more, faster. Through its flexible financing, it can address market and affordability gaps that get in the way of important projects moving forward. Unlike a granting program, the CIB is a repayable investment tool. We make disciplined, commercial investments designed to crowd in private and institutional capital, lower the overall cost of infrastructure and get paid back, so that funds can be reinvested into new projects. The CIB operates under an independent board of directors with accountability to Parliament exercised through the minister, including through the corporate planning process. Since 2020, the CIB has consistently…

Full testimony ↗

Steven Robins

Executive Vice President, Portfolio and Strategic Projects, Canada Infrastructure Bank

Opening remarks

Just to expand on what my colleague Mr. Duguay said, on every single project we start by measuring the CIB's investment and the private sector investment into that project. However, over time, the private sector pays us back. There's an evolution in how much private capital is in the project, from when we first start construction through the life of that project. As my colleague said, as of right now, there's more than one dollar of private sector money in every project that the CIB has invested. Further, we commissioned an independent study to look at the enabled private capital. My colleague talked about the example of the short-line rail terminal in the Alberta industrial heartland. The explicit goal of that project is to facilitate new investment in industrial activity around the Alberta industrial heartland, which would not be able to access global markets absent improved rail connections. When you look at not just the capital that is going into the infrastructure project but also the private sector investment that's enabled by those investments, that study found that more than four dollars of that enabled investment were coming from every single CIB investment.