Last month the Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario (RCCAO) released a report, authored by University of Toronto professor Matti Siemiatycki, calling on the federal government to examine the possibility of creating a Canadian Infrastructure Bank. Key findings from the report include:

• The cost of financing large projects can be greatly reduced by taking advantage of the federal government's top credit rating
• The purpose of an infrastructure bank is to provide low interest loans and credit enhancement services to provincial and municipal governments
• Because of the relatively small difference between the interest rates at which the federal and most municipal governments borrow money, the lending services of an infrastructure bank would provide significant benefits for only the largest infrastructure projects, focusing primarily on lending services to projects with capital values of at least $10 million

Read the full report here.