Tag Archive: P3

Public private partnerships under increasing attack in the UK

Aug 19, 2011
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While British Columbia continues to invest billions in public private partnerships(P3s), a UK Parliamentary Committee today told its government to “wean itself off the practice.”  The Treasury Select Committee found: We have not seen clear evidence of savings and benefits in other areas of PFI projects which are sufficient to offset this significantly higher cost of… View Article

Suspicion about private finance schemes growing in the UK

Jun 2, 2011
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On May 16th British Columbia’s Auditor General published a report on Vancouver General Hospital P3 that raised serious doubts about public private partnerships in British Columbia.  In the UK, where P3s have been around a lot longer, the doubts are getting even graver. Under P3s, or private finance initiative (PFI) as they are known in… View Article

Quebec Auditor General slams P3s in hospital project

Jun 11, 2010
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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…. View Article

Problems for the South Fraser Perimeter Road P3?

May 12, 2010
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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… View Article

The Premier speaks out on labour issues

Apr 30, 2009
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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,… View Article

Is the stimulus killing the P3 model?

Mar 27, 2009
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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… View Article

History lessons for Carole Taylor

Mar 22, 2009
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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… View Article

And Another Thing About the Port Mann non-P3

Mar 4, 2009
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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… View Article