Bank behind BC Ferries debacle to get more taxpayer funding

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is on track to receive a 29 per cent increase in taxpayer funding, despite having retained billions from its original budget and being designed to sustain itself.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Canada Infrastructure Bank is on track to receive a 29 per cent increase in taxpayer funding, despite having retained billions from its original budget and being designed to sustain itself through the interest generated by its loans.

However, the Carney government is seeking to increase the CIB budget by nearly $5 billion under Bill C-15, or An Act to Implement Certain Provisions of the Budget, without providing Parliament with a reason for the additional funds.

The CIB was recently the subject of much discussion after the Bank approved $1 billion in funding for the Chinese state-run Weihai Shipyards to build several new vessels for BC Ferries.

Both the federal and B.C. provincial governments ignored reports that the new vessels could be built domestically. Had it not been awarded to a Chinese company, it could have provided thousands of jobs across the country, and particularly helped the steel industry, which has been decimated in the wake of U.S. tariffs.

“The government gave $1 billion to buy boats from Beijing, offshoring Canadian steel and shipbuilding jobs, while executives at the Canada Infrastructure Bank pocketed fat bonuses,” said Conservative MP Dan Albas in the House of Commons last month.

Meanwhile, the increased funding comes after CIB CEO Ehren Cory said the bank had reached the “stage of being self-sustaining” during a Standing Committee on Public Accounts in October.

Additionally, he told the committee that the CIB had only used half its initial financing.

“We have now invested over $17 billion in more than 100 projects across the country,” he said. “Those projects have a total capital value of over $50 billion. Seventy-one of those projects are in construction, and seven of them have been completed or are in operation.”

The CIB was first created in 2017 under the Trudeau government and given $35 billion in taxpayer funds with a mandate to attract private investment when undertaking new public infrastructure.

“Each of these investments is made as a loan or equity investment, so they’re fully repayable with interest. That capital goes on to be redeployed in subsequent projects. I would note that as of last year, the Bank reached the status of being self-sustaining, by which I mean our operating costs are more than covered by the interest we earn, so we do not require operating appropriation,” said Cory.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives want to see the bank become a privatized venture, calling it a “failure.”

Their assessment echoes that of a 2022 report by the Canadian Construction Agency, which was later approved by members of the Commons transport committee on both sides of the political aisle, which referred to the CIB’s performances as being “pretty dismal.”

The report called for the government to sell off the CIB, allowing it to be privatized after it lost $899,318 on a failed climate project, with the bulk of the lost money spent on lawyers and consultants.

The proposed project was the Lake Erie Connector, which sought to run a 117-kilometre underwater electricity transmission line from Haldimand County, Ontario, to Erie County, Pennsylvania.

However, the Liberals maintain that the CIB has been a success, and one that requires significant additional funding from taxpayers.

“The Conservatives want to get rid of the Canada Infrastructure Bank,” said Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux in the House of Commons last week. “They call it a failure. They would get rid of it. They have no concept. Did they know the Infrastructure Bank is responsible for literally tens of thousands of jobs?”