The bank's role and operations have been criticized by a wide variety of associations, scholars, and opposition parties from its early beginnings.

The bank's website previously stated that it "was established in response to a market gap between government-funded and privately funded infrastructure projects".

[5] In November 2016, the government held high-level meetings concerning the bank's structure behind closed doors with private consultants from McKinsey, major equity investors such as BlackRock, and Canada's largest pension funds.

In a September 2017 keynote address to the Canadian council for public-private partnerships, CIV chair Janice Fukakusa affirmed that infrastructure projects financed through the CIB would be outside the public balance sheet.

She then stated that projects could generate revenues "in many different forms, including fees, tolls, fares, tariffs, and mechanisms based on appreciating land value".

[16] In July 2022, six months after becoming chairperson of the CIB, Tamara Vrooman told the Toronto Region Board of Trade that she was a "big fan of public-private partnerships".

[22] Political scientist Heather Whiteside predicted that the board of director's private-sector majority would mostly be concerned with projects' profitability and would disregard the government's other infrastructure priorities.

From 2021 onwards, the federal government stopped reviewing individual projects and began approving CIB investments by sector.

[8] The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) reviewed the CIB's announcements as of April 2021, and compared them with the track records of similar institutions.

The bank's 157-page response to this request did not include the details of its executive bonuses, citing "competitive and privacy considerations".

[23] According to CUPE, the CIB's structure represents a betrayal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's campaign promises concerning infrastructure.

Campaigning in 2015, Trudeau argued that the government could fund infrastructure projects by leveraging the public sector's low interest rates.

Some argue this was a bait-and-switch because the CIB is designed to promote public–private partnerships and asset recycling (the selling of existing public infrastructure to fund new projects).

[25] In February 2022, NDP MP Niki Ashton introduced a bill to rewrite the CIB's mandate to focus on projects that tackle the impacts of climate change, to fund publicly owned infrastructure instead of trying to involve private finance, and to invest more heavily in infrastructure in Indigenous and northern communities.

[29][30] On July 15, 2019, the CIB made a $CDN20 million investment commitment in a water and wastewater project in the township of Mapleton, Ontario.

[45] Mapleton, with a rural population of 11,000, has been seeking a public-private partnership to "design, build, finance, operate and maintain" a proposed 20-year project to improve and expand" the township's publicly owned water and wastewater infrastructure".

[45][1]: 5  While the water and wastewater systems will continue to be publicly owned, concerns have been raised by organizations, such as the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), that smaller communities may become locked into lengthy agreements with private financiers that result in higher user fees for water and wastewater services.