Quebec’s Auditor General has issued yet one more report slamming the use of public private partnerships (P3s). With P3s, private corporations finance and operate public facilities and services. The money they invest is more costly than money borrowed publicly. It is paid back to them, along with profits for the corporation, by governments over multi-decade contracts. [...]
Entries Tagged as 'P3'
Quebec Auditor General slams P3s in hospital project
June 11th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · Privatization, P3s & public services, Transparency & accountability
Problems for the South Fraser Perimeter Road P3?
May 12th, 2010 · Keith Reynolds · 2 Comments · Environment, resources & sustainability, Privatization, P3s & public services, Transparency & accountability
There are some interesting recent developments on the South Fraser Perimeter Road (SFPR) public private partnership project. A press release issued Friday afternoon announced the successful bidder in response to a Requests for Proposal. The results may not be what we were led to expect. The SFPR project is part of the Province’s Gateway project [...]
Tags: Gateway·Ministry of Transportation·P3·Partnerships BC·South Fraser Perimeter Road
The Premier speaks out on labour issues
April 30th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Employment & labour, Privatization, P3s & public services
On April 27th I posted about the BC Federation of Labour’s report on the impacts of changes to BC’s workers compensation system under the current government. Today Tom Sandborn writing for the Tyee posted a story quoting Premier Campbell’s response to health and safety issues. The story also dealt with the NDP and labour issues, [...]
Tags: BC Federation of Labour·Building Trades Council·construction·labour·P3·pensions·Tom Sandborn·welfare·workers' compensation·WorkSafe
Is the stimulus killing the P3 model?
March 27th, 2009 · Iglika Ivanova · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Economy, Privatization, P3s & public services
While BC has not formally abandoned the P3 model, there is a notable absence of new P3 projects at a time when billions of dollars are being channeled to infrastructure spending. If P3s really provided value for money and brought the benefits of private sector efficiency and innovation to the delivery of public-sector infrastructure, then [...]
History lessons for Carole Taylor
March 22nd, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services
Former Finance Minister Carole Taylor was in court last week testifying in a lawsuit arising from damage to Cambie Street merchants from the Canada Line. She was sympathetic to the merchants but, “It was a TransLink project,” she said. “There’s no question the province didn’t have any control over the project.” She admitted that at [...]
Tags: Canada Line·P3·Translink
And Another Thing About the Port Mann non-P3
March 4th, 2009 · Marvin Shaffer · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services, Provincial budget & finance
Now that the government has abandoned private financing of the Port Mann, it’s time to make the bigger but equally sensible leap and abandon the concept of a cost recovery project toll. I’m all for tolling. Unless you are a fan of the queues inevitably created by what can only be described as our current [...]
Tags: Canada Line·P3·Port Mann·transportation
Cancelled P3 saves $200 million
February 27th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services
Wow. Things can change pretty quickly in a day. Apparently the Port Mann Bridge P3 was just too ridiculous. Jeff Nagel already has a very interesting article in the Surrey Leader on the cancellation of the public private partnership. He includes the following quote from the Partnerships BC boss Larry Blain. Critics have long said [...]
Tags: P3·Port Mann·transportation
Death of a P3
February 27th, 2009 · Marc Lee · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services, Provincial budget & finance
And so the P3 financing deal for the Port Mann Super-Bridge died, conveniently right when it will get the least media coverage. Here’s the breaking news from the Sun: The province has been unable to reach a finance-arranging deal with the consortium that was to build the new Port Mann Bridge, transportation Minister Kevin Falcon [...]
Tags: P3·Port Mann·transportation
P3s? Fairly ridiculous
February 27th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services
They keep moving the goal posts for using public private partnerships (P3s) in BC to procure large projects. Government officials have argued in the past that the magic bullet for P3s was the combination of risk transfer and private investment. The government transferred risk to the private sector and private companies risked losing their investment [...]
Electricity Policy in BC: "Buy High – Sell Low"
February 20th, 2009 · Marvin Shaffer · No Comments · BC Election 2009, Economy, Energy
It was only a one-liner in the budget — the government plans to spend $10 million to advance the $400 million Northwest transmission line project along Highway 37, a project it says it will develop in partnership with the private sector. But this not-so-little initiative raises major questions about electricity policy (and sustainable economic development [...]
