PBO Proves Liberal Infrastructure Bank Approach Failed
Ottawa, ON – After almost a decade, spending billions in taxpayers’ money to direct private sector investment, the Liberals’ infrastructure bank has proved to be a failure. Since its creation, the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) has only completed seven projects, less than one per year, out of more than a hundred it has funded.
Despite gold-plated salaries and bonuses, with over $8 million handed out in the last year, the CIB struggles to get projects built. Since 2017, they still have more than half the money sitting in their bank account, not generating returns or delivering infrastructure like the Liberals promised. Instead of acknowledging the failure, Mark Carney is doubling down.
He promoted Michael Sabia, who pitched the CIB as a member of the Liberals’ Advisory Council on Economic Growth, to be the top civil servant in Ottawa. Sabia claimed, “every dollar of federal commitment triggers, say, four or five dollars from people like us. So you get this tremendous multiplication impact.” But by 2020, when the CIB had already proved to be a failure, he was brought in to ‘fix’ the CIB as Chair of the Board. By then, he had downgraded the ‘impact’ of the CIB, saying that “a dollar of our investments can bring in two or three dollars over time of third-party capital.”
Today’s report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer reveals the CIB failed to even attract that level of private investment. When all levels of government are included, two out of three dollars for projects that the CIB funds come from the public sector, including 11 percent from other federal ‘partners.’ In the last three years, private sector dollars have made up less than half of all funding for these projects.
That is a far cry from the multiples of private investment Sabia and the Liberals promised, as taxpayer-funded CIB projects attracted yet more taxpayer dollars. Even with this disastrous record, CEO Ehren Cory had the audacity to say the CIB had “really hit its stride” and defended the over $8 million in bonuses handed out the previous year. Cory alone makes $600,000 a year, costing taxpayers over $400,000 per completed project.
What is most worrying is that Mark Carney plans to use the CIB as the blueprint for all big government programs. In his mandate letter to cabinet ministers, he instructs them to use “scarce tax dollars to catalyze multiples of private investment” – extending the failed CIB model into housing, energy, transportation, and every other area of public infrastructure.
Canadians can’t afford more of the same – where Ottawa calls the shots and plays favourites to benefit Liberal insiders. It’s time to get the government out of the way so builders can build again. Conservatives will incentivize real investment by cutting taxes and red tape to grow business, not bureaucracy.