Latest / Trumponomics / 66: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

Transcript

66: Planes, Trains and Automobiles · Trumponomics

0:00
Speaker 1: Brought to you by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch. Seeing
0:03
Speaker 1: what others have seen, but uncovering what others may not.
0:06
Speaker 1: Global Research that helps you harness disruption voted top global
0:09
Speaker 1: research from five years running. Meryll Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and
0:13
Speaker 1: Smith Incorporated. Actually it's a very interesting discussion. We could
0:16
Speaker 1: go on and on and on with that. I mean,
0:18
Speaker 1: if you want to have me on your show weekly on,
0:21
Speaker 1: I'll be happy to be your Canadian contributor. Well do
0:25
Speaker 1: at the infecast. Hi, and welcome back to Bloomberg Benchmark,
0:40
Speaker 1: a show about the global economy. It's Thursday, December eight.
0:44
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Smith and editor for Bloomberg News in New York.
0:47
Speaker 1: And I'm Scott Landman and economics editor with Bloomberg in Washington.
0:50
Speaker 1: D Suit Scott, how are you all right? How's it going? Kate? Well,
0:54
Speaker 1: I have to say I am kind of regret I'm
0:57
Speaker 1: not regretting, I'm dreading. My ride home. The subway that
1:01
Speaker 1: I take to get home is like you remember the
1:03
Speaker 1: pictures that they showed like post Sandy, of all the
1:05
Speaker 1: people's shoulder to shoulder in the subway. Well, it's like that,
1:09
Speaker 1: but somehow that's just like my day to day life
1:11
Speaker 1: every day in New York. But I've heard that it's
1:13
Speaker 1: even worse a d C. Well, you should be happy
1:16
Speaker 1: that you get a ride home at all, because in
1:18
Speaker 1: d C there are days when the trains aren't even
1:20
Speaker 1: running or they're shutting down large sections of track. I mean,
1:23
Speaker 1: we don't really have the problem with overcrowding anymore because
1:26
Speaker 1: ridership has fallen significantly. But that's incredible. I didn't realize
1:31
Speaker 1: that I would like to have your problem. I'd rather
1:33
Speaker 1: have that than there not running. Do you sound like
1:35
Speaker 1: the lesser of two evils though? Yeah, Well, I think
1:38
Speaker 1: what you and I experienced that is obviously pretty reminiscent
1:41
Speaker 1: of what a lot of people experience in the US.
1:42
Speaker 1: And that's kind of just dealing with the failing infrastructure
1:45
Speaker 1: problem that you have here in America. UM, I don't
1:49
Speaker 1: know if you're familiar with the American Society of Civil Engineers,
1:52
Speaker 1: but they gave the U S a D plus um
1:55
Speaker 1: when ranking our country's infrastructure. And that's like, you know,
1:57
Speaker 1: in an academic scale, So you can't get that much worse.
2:01
Speaker 1: You could get an F. You could get an F.
2:03
Speaker 1: So we don't have an F we have a D plus.
2:05
Speaker 1: Does that even count just passing? Though I don't think
2:07
Speaker 1: in some places it doesn't, some it doesn't, Okay, So
2:11
Speaker 1: maybe passing depending where we are. And they also estimated
2:15
Speaker 1: to bring us to like a current, so I guess,
2:17
Speaker 1: like you know, an a perhaps it would take three
2:20
Speaker 1: point six trillion dollars by you talked about those numbers,
2:25
Speaker 1: and it's probably why Donald Trump's promised to repair UH
2:31
Speaker 1: infrastructure in the US resonated with voters. You know, it's
2:35
Speaker 1: impossible to know exactly what he's going to do to
2:38
Speaker 1: fulfill that promise because so you know, a few different
2:41
Speaker 1: proposals have been bandied about. One thing that his nominee
2:45
Speaker 1: for Treasury secretary mentioned was doing an infrastructure bank. It's
2:50
Speaker 1: actually an idea that the campaign criticized. So we don't
2:53
Speaker 1: really know what's going to happen, but UH an infrastructure
2:57
Speaker 1: bank is something that our neighbors to the north have
3:01
Speaker 1: announced that they wanted to implement, and that that came
3:05
Speaker 1: just recently in what they call the fall Economic Statement.
3:08
Speaker 1: So to tell us a little bit more about what
3:11
Speaker 1: we have in Canada, we have the Canadian Parliamentary Secretary
3:15
Speaker 1: to the Federal Minister of Finance, Francois Philippe Champagne. He's
3:19
Speaker 1: joining us over the phone. Francois Philippe is a liberal
3:23
Speaker 1: politician and he represents the writing of Scott. Please try
3:26
Speaker 1: not to laugh at me, Saint Maurice, I was sound
3:32
Speaker 1: super about, Oh, you are far too kind. You truly
3:35
Speaker 1: are a politician. So France of Philip, thank you so
3:39
Speaker 1: much for joining us. It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure
3:41
Speaker 1: I was listening to you, and yes, indeed, I mean
3:44
Speaker 1: that's the thing you're talking about, you know, public infrastructure
3:48
Speaker 1: and public transit in particular. It's a challenge you find
3:50
Speaker 1: in the number of capital around the world. And indeed,
3:53
Speaker 1: Canada tried to as you were saying in the fall
3:56
Speaker 1: autonomic statement, we we set the Canadians how we're going
3:59
Speaker 1: to do it, and um you may have seen we're
4:01
Speaker 1: going to invest hundred eighty six billion dollar UH in infrastructure.
4:06
Speaker 1: So that's an historic amount because we realized that Canadians
4:10
Speaker 1: have asked us to to obviously help them and their
4:13
Speaker 1: families and grow the economy. So as part of our
4:16
Speaker 1: inclusive growth model, within a number of things for Canadians,
4:19
Speaker 1: reducing taxes and investing in families. But on the growth side,
4:23
Speaker 1: we decided to invest, as you could see, massively infrastructure,
4:27
Speaker 1: not only in public transit, but also in green infrastructure,
4:30
Speaker 1: in trade corridors, in rural and infrastructure. And I'm quite
4:35
Speaker 1: happy to be talking to you about that because I
4:37
Speaker 1: think this is going to be transformational for Canada. Well,
4:40
Speaker 1: i'm happy that you're here to tell us about it.
4:41
Speaker 1: So the United States, obviously, I'm sure you've heard friendship. Um,
4:44
Speaker 1: we're like notoriously outdated for our infrastructure. We had nearly
4:49
Speaker 1: ten years ago. I think it was the Mississippi River
4:52
Speaker 1: bridge clap in Minneapolis that killed thirteen people and injured
4:55
Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty four. Um. Here in the Northeast,
4:58
Speaker 1: do you have the am truck train that a lot
5:01
Speaker 1: of people complain about, especially those who travel from DC
5:04
Speaker 1: to New York. Um, Scott, I'm sure you've had to
5:06
Speaker 1: deal with that before. Um, the campaign trail, the Guardian
5:10
Speaker 1: Airport comes up as the as the Third World country
5:12
Speaker 1: esque airport that we have here in New York. But
5:15
Speaker 1: you know, we know, we know all about how bad
5:17
Speaker 1: the US is, but trans maybe you can give us
5:19
Speaker 1: kind of an account of what it's like in Canada,
5:21
Speaker 1: what what's the reputation for infrastructure where you are, Well,
5:24
Speaker 1: clearly you know what we're finding in some of our cities,
5:28
Speaker 1: and you would find the same thing in the United States.
5:30
Speaker 1: We realized that the fact that people cannot transit easily
5:34
Speaker 1: in city as a social cost and economic costs. So
5:37
Speaker 1: that's why as part of the hundred d six billion
5:40
Speaker 1: Canadian we said would be investing over twelve years, we
5:43
Speaker 1: put aside twenty five point three billion for public transit
5:47
Speaker 1: because we realized there's a cost. You know, we want
5:49
Speaker 1: people to be able to transit in the city faster,
5:52
Speaker 1: That gives them more time with their family, more time
5:55
Speaker 1: to start a business, and so there's a social cost,
5:57
Speaker 1: economic costs, and we realized that in sort any we
6:00
Speaker 1: wanted to act because we we heard that from Canadian
6:03
Speaker 1: Then there was the green infrastructure piece. We're putting more
6:05
Speaker 1: than twenty two billion in that this is really about
6:08
Speaker 1: clean water, clean hair because um, not just in Canada,
6:12
Speaker 1: but I think you'd find throughout North America there's probably
6:15
Speaker 1: been an under investment in terms of these type of infrastructure,
6:18
Speaker 1: and we needed to continue to invest in and make
6:22
Speaker 1: sure that people UM in Canada in particularly want to
6:26
Speaker 1: see these green infrastructure being built. And then you have
6:28
Speaker 1: the social infrastructure, which is really about social housing. Um
6:32
Speaker 1: you mavered, We're gonna put around twenty two billion in
6:35
Speaker 1: that because this is really something throughout cities but also
6:39
Speaker 1: rural communities. Socializing is becoming an issue if you want
6:43
Speaker 1: people to be fully engaged in the economy before the
6:46
Speaker 1: engage in society, they have to be able to properly
6:48
Speaker 1: house themselves. And then the last piece and is really
6:51
Speaker 1: about the trade corridor, and that probably would be interesting
6:54
Speaker 1: for the US. So we said we point a found
6:56
Speaker 1: a ten billion to make sure that our goods can
6:59
Speaker 1: transit faster to our ports. Our airports are bridges mainly
7:03
Speaker 1: to the United States, in order to facilitate commerce because
7:06
Speaker 1: as you know, we don't need to remind people, but
7:09
Speaker 1: you know, we have about two billion of trade going
7:12
Speaker 1: on every day between Canada and the United States. You
7:15
Speaker 1: have about two thirds of the States and the United
7:17
Speaker 1: States who have Canada as their major export partners. So
7:20
Speaker 1: we want to facilitate commerce. We want to keep building
7:24
Speaker 1: on that extremely good relationship we have UM and making
7:27
Speaker 1: sure our trade corridors are very efficient and the last
7:30
Speaker 1: piece of fade to to the people listening to us
7:32
Speaker 1: is we put a fight two billion for our rural
7:34
Speaker 1: and northern communities, understanding probably just like in the US,
7:38
Speaker 1: that they have very particular need to make sure that
7:41
Speaker 1: we cover these people as well with a very specific
7:44
Speaker 1: program of investment. Now, now let's let's talk about what
7:48
Speaker 1: Kate was saying about. You know, the US infrastructure getting
7:51
Speaker 1: a D plus from the Society of Civil Engineers. When
7:55
Speaker 1: when you look at the condition of Canada's airports, roads, bridges,
8:00
Speaker 1: is water infrastructure things like that, what kind of reading
8:04
Speaker 1: would you give it on a scale of one to
8:06
Speaker 1: ten when you would say, like ten is in excellent
8:08
Speaker 1: condition and one is uh, you know, you're you're falling apart,
8:13
Speaker 1: like lookwart here, Well, I would say, you know, just
8:16
Speaker 1: like in the US, if you look across the nation,
8:18
Speaker 1: I think that the answer could be different depending on
8:21
Speaker 1: if you go if you look north, if you look east, west,
8:24
Speaker 1: or in the middle of the country. But suffice to
8:26
Speaker 1: say that what we've seen in Canada and it may
8:29
Speaker 1: be true another we city country. Particularly over the last
8:32
Speaker 1: ten years, there's been an under investment not only a
8:35
Speaker 1: new bill, but also in maintenance so obviously when we
8:38
Speaker 1: entered government UM with the Prime Minister, true though, we
8:41
Speaker 1: found ourselves in a situation where we need to invest
8:46
Speaker 1: massively in our infrastructure. This is also good for the
8:49
Speaker 1: economy because we said to Canadians that we want to
8:52
Speaker 1: have inclusive growth, we want to grow the economy, and
8:55
Speaker 1: clearly infrastructure investments give the right way to do because
8:58
Speaker 1: that touches about every on UM in our country. When
9:01
Speaker 1: you look at these different infrastructure you mentioned, everyone's going
9:04
Speaker 1: to benefit. And you know, I would say confident nations
9:07
Speaker 1: to the invest in their people and in their economy.
9:10
Speaker 1: And one of the things that we've announced in the
9:13
Speaker 1: Falltonomic statement was one thing we wanted to create and
9:17
Speaker 1: we're gonna set up is an infrastructure Bank. The reason
9:21
Speaker 1: for that is for us to be able to do
9:23
Speaker 1: more and faster. This is going to be one more
9:25
Speaker 1: tool in our toolbox because we understand that UM we
9:29
Speaker 1: want to attract global investment, global capital UM. I was
9:33
Speaker 1: just at the APEX Finance Minister's summit in li Mont,
9:36
Speaker 1: Peru recently, and when I was talking about the Canadian
9:40
Speaker 1: way in terms of infrastructure investment, you see there's a
9:43
Speaker 1: number of nation and global investments that would like to
9:47
Speaker 1: invest in countries like Canada where you have stability, predictability,
9:50
Speaker 1: rule of law, very stable banking system, and we think
9:54
Speaker 1: that the Infrastructure Bank is gonna be allowing us to
9:59
Speaker 1: get the leverage we want in order to attract this
10:01
Speaker 1: type of global investment to help us build faster and
10:05
Speaker 1: more um with the time skill that we've given Canadians
10:08
Speaker 1: to deliver. So, first off, Philip, we have a we
10:12
Speaker 1: have an ad we're going to break for, but when
10:14
Speaker 1: we come back, I want to hear exactly how an
10:17
Speaker 1: infrastructure bank works for our those listeners who aren't policy
10:21
Speaker 1: wanks like us. Definitely be a pleasure brought to you
10:33
Speaker 1: by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Seeing what others have seen,
10:36
Speaker 1: but uncovering what others may not. Global research that helps
10:39
Speaker 1: you harness disruption voted top global research from five years running.
10:44
Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated. Welcome back. Okay, So,
10:56
Speaker 1: first of Philip, let's take a step back here, how
10:59
Speaker 1: exactly use of our listeners. I know how an infrastructure
11:01
Speaker 1: bank works. It's actually this tool that they use in
11:04
Speaker 1: the world of municipal bonds here in the US. But
11:07
Speaker 1: can you help our listeners who aren't perhaps familiar with
11:10
Speaker 1: kind of the basics of how an infrastructure bank works. Yeah,
11:13
Speaker 1: I mean, let me tell you why we did that
11:16
Speaker 1: in Canada. May If you look at traditional funding model,
11:18
Speaker 1: if you have a project of five millions in Canada,
11:21
Speaker 1: you would normally have fundings which would be wandered federal,
11:24
Speaker 1: wandered provincial, and one through municipal. Now with the infrastructure Bank,
11:29
Speaker 1: we think we can get the leverage to four to five.
11:31
Speaker 1: So with the same five million project, we think we
11:34
Speaker 1: can raise private capital to the extent of about four million,
11:38
Speaker 1: and then the federal government would put one third, the
11:41
Speaker 1: municipal would put one third, and preventional would put one third.
11:44
Speaker 1: So what I was thinking is that it allows us
11:46
Speaker 1: to do more and faster. So why are we creating
11:49
Speaker 1: that first is to obviously attract global investment to help
11:53
Speaker 1: us to do more and faster. And the reason why
11:56
Speaker 1: you want to have a structure, and like I said,
11:58
Speaker 1: other nations you mentioned it a that' um I know
12:01
Speaker 1: of the Australian model for example, but for us, it's
12:04
Speaker 1: really about making sure that we pull the expertise we
12:08
Speaker 1: would have in this country to make sure that we
12:11
Speaker 1: have all the experts in one place. Um. The second
12:14
Speaker 1: thing is that we can have projects that could be
12:17
Speaker 1: finance uh, so that you need to package these projects
12:21
Speaker 1: into something that you can attract global investments. And the
12:24
Speaker 1: third thing is that you want to have a pipeline
12:26
Speaker 1: of projects. So when you have global investors who are
12:30
Speaker 1: looking to invest, for example, in Canada infrastructure, typically these
12:33
Speaker 1: people would want to see what kind of projects you have,
12:36
Speaker 1: what kind of pipeline of projects you have? Are they
12:39
Speaker 1: in green infrastructure, are they in public transit? Are they
12:43
Speaker 1: in wastewater and water. So by having one structure, you
12:47
Speaker 1: actually pull the expertise. You make sure that you have
12:50
Speaker 1: bankable projects. You make sure that you have a pipeline
12:52
Speaker 1: of projects. So when you want to go to the
12:54
Speaker 1: global markets, you have indeed a place where global investor
13:00
Speaker 1: and can can call and see what type of investment
13:03
Speaker 1: if they want to invest in infrastructure in Canada, where
13:05
Speaker 1: they can go. And I think this is going to
13:07
Speaker 1: be very successful. I mean again, I was at the
13:10
Speaker 1: APEX Finance Ministers summit in Peru just recently and I
13:14
Speaker 1: was mentioning a number of projects and um, you know,
13:17
Speaker 1: to give you an example, what I mentioned some of
13:20
Speaker 1: the projects. Some of the delegation came to see me
13:22
Speaker 1: after and say, that's the type of projects we would
13:25
Speaker 1: really want to invest. So what are the projects and
13:27
Speaker 1: my curiosities peak. Yeah, well, I gave the example in Montreal,
13:32
Speaker 1: which is a great city. In Montreal, we're building what
13:34
Speaker 1: we call a regional electric train and this is about
13:39
Speaker 1: a four to five billion dollar projects in Canada. This
13:42
Speaker 1: is very great because we're building another public transit, a
13:46
Speaker 1: very green one. And when I mentioned that, obviously that
13:50
Speaker 1: sparked a lot of interest. Because you have a number
13:52
Speaker 1: of delegations who have sovereign funds or others. We say,
13:55
Speaker 1: that's exactly the type of projects we want to invest
13:57
Speaker 1: because you have you know, you know that matches their liabilities.
14:02
Speaker 1: That those are projects that you can finance over thirty years.
14:05
Speaker 1: So very interesting for investors to look at. And can
14:09
Speaker 1: I interrupt a second now, let me let me turn
14:11
Speaker 1: to a couple criticisms that I've heard of infrastructure banks
14:16
Speaker 1: and private financing. One is that what Trump and his
14:22
Speaker 1: campaign said throughout the year, which which is that an
14:25
Speaker 1: infrastructure bank creates a whole new bureaucracy, creates, you know,
14:28
Speaker 1: kind of centralizes decision making. That's one criticism. And then
14:32
Speaker 1: kind of from the other side of the political aisle,
14:35
Speaker 1: you hear the criticism that you know, in order to
14:38
Speaker 1: make private financing work, you need you need a pretty
14:41
Speaker 1: significant flow of taxes or user fees, and you know
14:44
Speaker 1: that burden either tends to fall on the average folks
14:48
Speaker 1: using the infrastructure, or you know the project doesn't get
14:52
Speaker 1: financed at all. How do you respond to those two issues? Well,
14:56
Speaker 1: the first one, I think by pulling the resources and
14:59
Speaker 1: the projects and an agency, I think you get economy
15:02
Speaker 1: of scale and and actually for me, I think it's
15:05
Speaker 1: a better way to market these projects if you want
15:07
Speaker 1: to attract global investments, so that people know who to call,
15:10
Speaker 1: who to talk to if they're interested in investing in
15:13
Speaker 1: transformational projects. I mean, we're looking about transformational infrastructure projects
15:18
Speaker 1: in our nations. I think there's there's a lot of
15:20
Speaker 1: benefits of having one place where people can actually look
15:23
Speaker 1: for and also for this agency to prepare these projects,
15:27
Speaker 1: select these projects, and the best way to make sure
15:29
Speaker 1: that we're going to attract these global investments. The other thing,
15:33
Speaker 1: with respect to the user fees, I mean, if you
15:35
Speaker 1: look at regional light trains, the one that was just
15:38
Speaker 1: talking about. I mean, people already pay for using these services,
15:42
Speaker 1: so I don't think that you can necessarily, like you said,
15:46
Speaker 1: equate that would be higher users fees. I think we
15:49
Speaker 1: know that global capital is looking at investments like these
15:52
Speaker 1: one with very long returns, and I think that people
15:55
Speaker 1: would be um. What I said to Canadians many times,
15:58
Speaker 1: and that would apply to the US. Why not put
16:00
Speaker 1: our pension money working for Canadians. So Canadian pension money
16:04
Speaker 1: working for Canadians. So when people enter the train in
16:07
Speaker 1: the morning, they know that they're, for example, in this case,
16:10
Speaker 1: their pension has been helping them to build in that
16:13
Speaker 1: and when they pay the user fee, they're actually investing
16:15
Speaker 1: in their own pension. So there's something you know. When
16:18
Speaker 1: we went to the public with that, we really made
16:21
Speaker 1: the case that this was something good for people and
16:24
Speaker 1: that would benefit everyone, not just the users. But this
16:28
Speaker 1: is a good way to reinvest. I mean, we know
16:30
Speaker 1: that there's um, there's a fair amount of capital um
16:33
Speaker 1: and pension funds around the world. Insurance companies that are
16:37
Speaker 1: looking for these types of projects which are going to
16:39
Speaker 1: improve our cities, are going to improve our quality of life,
16:42
Speaker 1: are going to bring greener infrastructure. And honestly, when you
16:45
Speaker 1: say to Canadians, why don't we put your pension on
16:47
Speaker 1: money working for you? Now, that's something that people relate
16:50
Speaker 1: to and they accept willingly to say that seems to
16:54
Speaker 1: be the smart thing to do today. So this has
16:56
Speaker 1: been all very positive, but I have to imagine this
16:59
Speaker 1: is politics. There's got to have been some negative feedback.
17:02
Speaker 1: So what's been some of the criticisms of potentially implementing
17:05
Speaker 1: an infrastructure bank in Canada. Well, the main criticism we
17:09
Speaker 1: got was, and I would say that, is there there
17:12
Speaker 1: not another agency already existing that could be doing that?
17:15
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, we had some agency looking at
17:19
Speaker 1: p p P projects, but I think that we thought
17:23
Speaker 1: that having a different agency to really with a mandate
17:27
Speaker 1: to organize these projects and market them is the best
17:29
Speaker 1: way to do. I think there's been very few this
17:32
Speaker 1: agreement with respected the value and the merit of making
17:35
Speaker 1: sure that um uh, we can structure this project to
17:39
Speaker 1: attract global investment. I think people don't understand the leverage.
17:42
Speaker 1: People don't understand that we need to do more and faster. Uh.
17:46
Speaker 1: Some people like you mentioned question the user fees and
17:49
Speaker 1: what we've been very transparent about is that this is
17:52
Speaker 1: not for all types of project. Like I said, you know,
17:55
Speaker 1: we're putting hundred D six billion in infrastructure over over
17:59
Speaker 1: twelve years, and we're taking only fifteen billion out of
18:02
Speaker 1: this dread a D six in the Infrastructure Bank, and
18:06
Speaker 1: we think we can raise another twenty billion on the
18:08
Speaker 1: market for the infrastructure bang. So what we're saying to
18:11
Speaker 1: people is that clearly there's some type of investment think
18:14
Speaker 1: about social infrastructure. I don't necessarily think that we're going
18:17
Speaker 1: to find projects that would fit the bill to be
18:20
Speaker 1: fundance to the Infrastructure Bank, but by getting the leverage
18:24
Speaker 1: with the Infrastructure Bank for those projects that could attract
18:27
Speaker 1: global capital, that gives us more money to being able
18:31
Speaker 1: to invest in social infrastructure. And when you explain to
18:35
Speaker 1: people and you take the time to say this is
18:37
Speaker 1: about doing more and faster and actually not using public
18:41
Speaker 1: funds that would otherwise be needed to build a type
18:45
Speaker 1: of infrastructure where we need we can get private capital,
18:48
Speaker 1: but using these funds too, for example, invest in social housing.
18:52
Speaker 1: People really understand that this really makes sense. So how
18:55
Speaker 1: long until this Infrastructure Bank is up and running, until
18:58
Speaker 1: it finances it's for projects? Well as you said. We
19:02
Speaker 1: we announced that in the fall coomic statement we have
19:05
Speaker 1: in Canada. This is you know, six months after our
19:08
Speaker 1: federal budget, so you know, we're about building the blueprints
19:12
Speaker 1: of that. We want to obviously get the bank started
19:15
Speaker 1: as fast as possible. I think based on our discussions
19:19
Speaker 1: with a number of international partners, there's a lot of
19:21
Speaker 1: interest in investing in Canada for the reasons we know,
19:25
Speaker 1: because people want to invest in North America, people have
19:28
Speaker 1: confidence in our system, people will see that these green
19:32
Speaker 1: projects are going to attract significant investments. So we're trying
19:35
Speaker 1: to set up with you know, a small team to
19:38
Speaker 1: start as soon as possible to make sure that we
19:41
Speaker 1: can start market these projects around the world and get um,
19:45
Speaker 1: these projects built as soon as possible. So let me
19:47
Speaker 1: ask you one final question. UM. Like I mentioned before,
19:50
Speaker 1: the US does use the infrastructure bank model on a
19:54
Speaker 1: smaller scale. UM. The idea of being you know, for
19:57
Speaker 1: our listeners who don't know about this, certain dates that
20:00
Speaker 1: have small municipalities, UM, they'll use a state level infrastructure
20:06
Speaker 1: bank model. And the way it works is that the
20:08
Speaker 1: state will borrow money on capital markets using the states
20:12
Speaker 1: interest rate UM, which is you know, much lower. Of course,
20:15
Speaker 1: than the towns, and then the towns will go to
20:18
Speaker 1: the state, you know, saying you know, the infistracture products
20:22
Speaker 1: that they want to get done, and the state will
20:25
Speaker 1: effectively lend the money to the individual towns. The whole
20:28
Speaker 1: purpose being that small towns aren't edged out of the
20:31
Speaker 1: capital markets, you know, by either just no investor being
20:35
Speaker 1: interested or having to pay you know, prohibitively high interest rates.
20:39
Speaker 1: And the long way of asking you, um, is there
20:42
Speaker 1: a reason why you didn't look at look at maybe
20:44
Speaker 1: perhaps doing this on a province by province basis as
20:48
Speaker 1: opposed to federal Well, I mean it's interesting you mentioned
20:51
Speaker 1: states because I'm a bit familiar with the Alaskan model.
20:54
Speaker 1: I think in Alaska there's something similar to that which
20:57
Speaker 1: I'm familiar because I think I've met with people, Uh
21:01
Speaker 1: we're saying the great things you've been able to achieve
21:03
Speaker 1: in Alaska, which respected that in terms of infrastructure development.
21:06
Speaker 1: So clearly, like you said, there's different models and more
21:09
Speaker 1: of it with the Alaska example. But I think for us,
21:13
Speaker 1: because we're looking at transformational national type of projects, we
21:18
Speaker 1: thought that this is the best way to to get
21:20
Speaker 1: the best leverage was really to have that at the
21:23
Speaker 1: federal level. UM, we want to make sure that we
21:27
Speaker 1: attract some of the best talent in this agency. We
21:32
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we structure these projects to
21:34
Speaker 1: be bankable, and I think to do that on a
21:37
Speaker 1: national basis. Obviously it could be different in the United
21:40
Speaker 1: States because obviously our economy or different size, but we
21:43
Speaker 1: thought in Canada that the right thing to do was
21:46
Speaker 1: really to do that on a national basis, so that, UM,
21:49
Speaker 1: I think we can better market as a country some
21:53
Speaker 1: of these projects, whether it's the rail projects I mentioned
21:55
Speaker 1: in Montreal, or whether you would have a port expansion
21:59
Speaker 1: or you would have an apport expansion. I think from
22:02
Speaker 1: our perspective, UM, it's better to market that at the
22:05
Speaker 1: national level. And like I said, there's been a great
22:07
Speaker 1: level of interest because people have seen probably just like
22:11
Speaker 1: you mentioned in the number of United States, but also
22:13
Speaker 1: I know in Australian and other place that once they
22:16
Speaker 1: have created that this has been very beneficial in attracting
22:20
Speaker 1: the type of global investment that we want to track
22:23
Speaker 1: to make sure that we can build these projects. UM.
22:26
Speaker 1: And I think this is the smart thing to do.
22:29
Speaker 1: You know, today you have all this capital in in
22:31
Speaker 1: pension funds, and insurance company which are looking for these
22:35
Speaker 1: types of projects. I mean, our pension funds and our
22:37
Speaker 1: insurance company are investing abroad, so it just seems to
22:39
Speaker 1: make sense for us to create the structure that would
22:43
Speaker 1: make it possible for them to invest in our own country. Well, first, Philip,
22:47
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us uh this week's benfuct.
22:49
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for making yourself available. Well, it's
22:52
Speaker 1: a great pleasure and and look forward to talk to
22:55
Speaker 1: you and very happy to to tell you how this
22:58
Speaker 1: is unfolding. And I'm sure this is going to be
23:00
Speaker 1: a model not only for Canada, but something that could
23:02
Speaker 1: be replicated in a number of places. Absolutely well, Benchmark
23:06
Speaker 1: will be back next week, and until then, you can
23:08
Speaker 1: find us on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot com, as
23:11
Speaker 1: well as on iTunes, Pocketcast, and Stitcher. While you're there,
23:15
Speaker 1: take a minute to rate and review the show so
23:17
Speaker 1: that more listeners can find us and let us know
23:19
Speaker 1: what you thought of the show. You can talk to
23:21
Speaker 1: and follow us on Twitter at at Scott Landman and
23:25
Speaker 1: at by Kate Smith. And of course a big shout
23:28
Speaker 1: out to our folks behind the windows, Sarah Patterson and
23:31
Speaker 1: Al McCabe. So, Scott, what do you think? Do you
23:34
Speaker 1: think we have an infrastructure bank around the corner for
23:36
Speaker 1: the US. I'm still holding my breath. I'll believe it
23:40
Speaker 1: when I see it. Okay, there you kind of theirs first. Yeah,
23:44
Speaker 1: probably see you next week. Brought to you by Bank
23:58
Speaker 1: of America. Meryll Lynch. Seeing what others have seen, but
24:01
Speaker 1: uncovering what others may not. Global Research that helps you
24:04
Speaker 1: harness disruption voted top global research from five years running.
24:09
Speaker 1: Mary Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated,