Evaluation Summary: Evaluation of the New Building Canada Fund
July 2018

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Program Description

Infrastructure Canada's New Building Canada Fund (NBCF) is a $14-billion Fund that supports projects of national, regional and local significance. Since 2014, it has promoted economic growth, job creation and productivity across Canada.

It consists of three components:

1. The $4-billion National Infrastructure Component (NIC):—a merit-based program that provides funding for projects of national significance.
2. The $9-billion Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component—National Regional Projects (PTIC-NRP):—an allocation based program that provides funding to support primarily provincial, territorial or municipal infrastructure projects of national and regional significance.
3. The $1-billion Provincial-Territorial Infrastructure Component—Small Communities Program (PTIC-SCF):—an allocation based program that provides contribution funding for municipal infrastructure projects in small communities with populations of 100,000 or less.

About This Evaluation

The evaluation assessed:

1. the extent to which the NBCF addressed provincial, territorial and municipal (PTMs) infrastructure needs,
2. the effectiveness of the design, delivery, and
3. the efficiency of the program.

It covered a three-year period from the Program's inception in 2014-2015 until 2016-2017.

What the Evaluation Found

The evaluation found that the program is relevant. NBCF addressed PTMs' evolving infrastructure needs by funding different types of projects through a variety of eligible funding categories. The 2016 program amendments which added five additional funding categories provided further flexibility for PTMs.

The 2016 change in the program that lowered traffic volume requirements for the funding category of highways and roads has led to an increase in the number of approved projects.

There was concurrent programming between NBCF and programs in place before the NBCF was created. However, funding for the programs that preceded NBCF were, in very large part, already allocated to projects being constructed before NBCF projects were approved.

Project	Pre- PTIF/CWWF (FY 2015-16)	Post- PTIF/CWWF (FY 2016-17)
Public Transit	7	9
Drinking Water	126	51
Wastewater	143	37
Disaster Mitigation	18	10
Highways and Roads	44	95
Innovation	2	2
Marine	2	4
Culture	1	3
Recreation	7	17
Airports	2	4
Tourism	0	2
Green Energy	6	2
Broadband and Connectivity	2	6
Solid Waste	14	3
Brownfield	4	1

The launch of PTIF/CWWF delayed the implementation of PTIC with regards to the number of approved projects and dollars spent, particularly on water and wastewater projects.

While improvements have been made over time, INFC continues to have challenges related to reporting on results. A lack of consistency and the number of performance indicators among the different programs and recipients make aggregation of performance data to draw program-level conclusions for NBCF complex.

NBCF Sub Programs are very similar and some diferentiating factors are not well defined. The same project could potentially be funded under any sub-program. Depending on the sub-program that a project is approved under, there may be notable resource implications for PTMs and INFC. The administrative costs to deliver the NBCF program were lower than INFC's previous programs.

However, the costing and tracking of NBCF resources used was not the same. This limits INFC's ability to find ways to better allocate resources.

Recommendations

1. INFC should continue to explore ways to work with PTs to develop a standardized and consistent approach to the collection of performance measurement.
2. INFC should review its approach to cost, capture and monitor information about resource allocation, with the aim of better supporting continuous improvements to program delivery and decision-making. The level of effort to do so should be commensurate with internal capacity.