The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - January 11, 2023


Chrystia Freeland Called Out For Spending $2 billion Dollars On Non-Existant Corporation


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

130.63

Word count

798

Sentence count

43


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Finance Minister Bill Morneau responds to a question from a Canadian senator about the Canada Growth Fund and why there should be a separate piece of legislation which outlines the fund s mandate and how it will be managed.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Division 1 on the Canada Growth Fund, and I have some concerns about that section of the bill.
00:00:06.800 It's going to provide $2 billion to you as Minister to buy shares in a corporation which does not exist.
00:00:15.520 There's no legislation which tells us anything about this yet to be created corporation.
00:00:20.980 We don't know anything about the composition of the board, or even whether there will be a board.
00:00:25.980 There's nothing to tell us about the financial controls that will be exercised over the $2 billion.
00:00:32.620 And there's nothing to indicate what the governance structure is going to be.
00:00:37.180 And equally concerning, there's a section there in that part of the bill that says that the $2 billion isn't the most that's going to be paid out.
00:00:46.280 It leaves it quite open that there could be future monies coming out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and there's no limit on it.
00:00:54.760 So what I don't understand is why, if you're going to establish a fund with money of that magnitude,
00:01:05.080 why isn't there a separate bill which would outline the specifics of the company and also what the company is going to do,
00:01:15.640 what the mandate is, what the objectives are, what the board composition is going to be.
00:01:20.400 So it's really concerning to see $2 billion going out with an explanation.
00:01:25.160 I think there are 17 lines there, and it leaves it quite open that additional monies can be paid out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
00:01:32.840 So why is there not a separate piece of legislation?
00:01:35.980 Well, thank you for the question, and thank you for focusing on what I actually believe is one of the most important elements of this was introduced in the budget
00:01:50.060 and elaborated on in the fall economic statement, and something that I see as one of the most important elements of our green transition.
00:01:59.100 The Canada Growth Fund will actually be capitalized at $15 billion,
00:02:06.100 and the objective is for that government money to pull in private capital at a ratio of at least three to one.
00:02:16.480 It will be managed by professionals.
00:02:19.480 We understand that we need to have actual investment professionals do this work.
00:02:29.380 It's going to perform some very sophisticated jobs in the green transition, including contracts for difference,
00:02:38.800 which we are hearing from investors in Canada and outside Canada is a really important element to ensure that people have the confidence in our carbon pricing system to invest in it.
00:02:52.860 And I'll just add one more thing.
00:02:53.980 I do want to hear your next question, Senator.
00:02:55.920 But to the question of why are we doing it now, I would say to you two things.
00:03:06.380 One, the green transition, we have to act quickly.
00:03:10.420 But from my perspective, the Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act added to the urgency with which Canada needs to act.
00:03:19.860 They are deploying hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in the green transition.
00:03:26.240 We need to move really, really fast.
00:03:29.300 And so getting this fund in place quickly is more important than ever.
00:03:33.220 But, Minister, you can't put the fund in place.
00:03:35.940 You're saying, give me the $2 billion, I'll buy some shares, but the company doesn't even exist.
00:03:42.340 The company doesn't exist, and you're giving us all this information verbally.
00:03:46.980 If that's the mandate of this soon-to-be or this corporation you're talking about, why isn't it in the legislation?
00:03:57.140 I mean, you know, we're looking at this.
00:03:59.400 There's 17 lines there to justify spending at least $2 billion, and then it leaves it wide open for there to be additional appropriations coming out of the Canada Revenue Fund.
00:04:14.300 Like, I'm just very, very surprised to see it.
00:04:17.880 $2 billion with no explanation within the bill over how the $2 billion is going to be controlled.
00:04:27.820 The company's not even created, and what are you going to buy shares in?
00:04:31.340 There's no company yet.
00:04:32.360 Senator, you are one of the most precise questioners I face and have a very, very strong financial background, and I really appreciate that.
00:04:55.740 And I think that scrutiny is important.
00:04:57.820 What I would say in terms of the Canada Growth Fund is what I hear from Canadians and from Canadian businesses, especially in wake of the Inflation Reduction Act, is Canada has to move fast, and Canada has to move faster than we have hitherto.
00:05:13.900 So we are moving quickly to structure the Canada Growth Fund.
00:05:18.000 We're going to be fully transparent in how we stand it up, and details are going to be forthcoming in the coming weeks and months.
00:05:26.040 But I really believe, given the hundreds of billions of dollars that the U.S. is deploying, we cannot allow the U.S. to suck all of that investment south of the border.
00:05:36.560 Thank you very much.