Transport committee  I can't comment on that particular article, not having seen it, but the idea behind the bank—

Transport committee  Again, I haven't seen the article, but the idea from the bank is to crowd in other sources of capital, which would of course reduce the amount of money the government is spending on a project and increase the amount the private sector spending. By definition, there would be a risk—

Transport committee  I thank you for your question. Unfortunately, I haven't seen the article, but I've been clear on what we were trying to achieve.

Transport committee  I have not taken the time to go through the budget line by line. Certainly, during my time in office, included among the things we did that I think were important was the Canada Infrastructure Bank as an important budgetary—

Transport committee  As you can imagine, I took some time to prepare for this committee meeting this morning. I made sure I reviewed the Canada Infrastructure Bank. The things I reviewed did not include the budget for this year.

Transport committee  Our thinking at the time was that we needed to consider the best ways to ensure that we were going to able to significantly enhance our investment in infrastructure in the country. We wanted to find a way to make sure that large sources of capital would come into Canadian infrastructure.

Transport committee  It was, from my perspective, important that we sought out people for my advisory council on growth who would be able to bring a perspective to the table. That included people like Dominic Barton and Michael Sabia. It included others who had significant expertise in other domains both across Canada and around the world.

Transport committee  I had no exposure to any of the decisions that the Canada Infrastructure Bank took on how it would best meet its goals. Whether it did that internally or whether it did that with advisers was something that was not ever brought to me, nor did I have an opinion on it at the time.

Transport committee  As I mentioned earlier, one of our key goals with the set-up of the Canada Infrastructure Bank was to make sure that it was able to operate independently of government. We saw that as an advantage. Of course there would've been significant deliberations on the right processes to put in place in that institution.

Transport committee  Well, thank you, and it is nice to be back in at least a virtual meeting with you after a few years. One of the things that we saw as critically important with the Canada Infrastructure Bank was the need for us to rethink infrastructure in ways that were going to be resilient against climate change.

Transport committee  Again, of course, I've personally been involved in signing off on documents, but I didn't see this document, nor do I have the—

Transport committee  Yes, of course, I have had exposure to these concepts in the past, but I, again, did not have anything to do with this part of the development of the advisory council or the membership.

Transport committee  Thank you for the question. I was pleased, as I mentioned earlier, to have Dominic Barton take the role of chair of my advisory council. The fact that he did that on a pro bono basis was important, and I saw that as a good contribution to what we were trying to achieve. I had no exposure following that to any decisions that the Canada Infrastructure Bank took on how it was going to determine the best way to execute its mission.

Transport committee  Again, I have no way of answering that question. I have no knowledge about any contract that was or wasn't reported. I have no understanding of any process that might have taken place. I just have no way of responding other than to say that during the period in which I was engaged in working on the advisory council, we sought out people who could help us with thinking about long-term economic prosperity and develop ideas that we then had as part of our decision-making framework as we considered our plans.

Transport committee  I was at no time aware of that. I had no knowledge prior to any of these committee meetings.