PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK
FINANCING
WHEN THE NEW Liberal government made a commitment of $120 billion over
10 years in new federal infrastructure funding commitments in the 2016 federal
budget, you might have thought that would be a game changer for infrastructure
finance. You'd be wrong.
It's a slate of large transit projects right across Canada that is changing the way
such infrastructure developments are financed.
Projects like new light rail transit lines in Greater Vancouver, Ottawa and Mon-
tréal among others cost many billions of dollars each.
Canadian banks have never been interested in the long end of such big projects,
which require massive financing commitments, oen for 25 or 30 years, tradition-
ally yielding to their Japanese and European counterparts.
But there are new players in town: Large public pension funds and broadly mar-
keted and rated bonds.
12 LEXPERT
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2016
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WWW.LEXPERT.CA
INNOVATION IN INFRASTRUCTURE FINANCE
IS HAPPENING ON MANY FRONTS BY SANDRA RUBIN
BANKING
ON FINANCE
