Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My apologies to our witnesses for the slight diversion while we took care of some business.
I'm interested in this idea of risk transfer, because this is one of the big arguments for CIB's role. It has been argued by the government that it's important in both directions. The CIB is important to de-risk public projects, essentially taking public infrastructure and flooding in private capital to help build public infrastructure. Maybe that's not de-risking, but the flow of private capital would largely benefit the building of public infrastructure. It has also been argued that, in the case of this project, it's essentially taking public capital and putting it into private infrastructure.
I guess my question is for Mr. Pawlowski. If a project like this has proponents with such deep pockets and if there's a strong economic case—your company wouldn't be involved in it if there wasn't a strong financial case for your company to profit off this project over the long term—why should the Canadian public be involved in building it? It seems like a project that can stand on its own two feet.
I would echo the sentiments of a former member of the committee from the Conservative Party who said that it feels like the eagerness of the CIB to get something built, to get anything built, has resulted in them essentially trying to convince the private sector to allow them to lend them low-cost money.
I guess what I'm failing to see is the real public benefit that would justify that.