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 [...]
Entries Tagged as 'P3'
And Another Thing About the Port Mann non-P3
March 4th, 2009 · Marvin Shaffer · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services, Provincial budget & finance
Tags: Canada Line·P3·Port Mann·transportation
Cancelled P3 saves $200 million
February 27th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 · Comments Off · 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 [...]
They don't pay taxes in Surrey? Who knew?
February 12th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services, Taxes
Transportation Minister Keven Falcon had letters to the editor this week in both the Vancouver Sun and the Times Colonist saying, “The new Port Mann Bridge will not cost taxpayers a dime.” He was saying that the bridge will be paid for by tolls but he seems to have forgotten that people who cross the [...]
Tags: P3·Port Mann·transportation
Forensic auditors say P3s expensive, biased and secret
January 29th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services
So who are you going to believe about public private partnerships (P3s)? One side of the debate says they’re swell. They save money for taxpayers, they come in on budget and they transfer risk from governments to companies. But other people say details are kept secret from the public and that in fact they cost [...]
Tags: Abbotsford Hospital·Canada Line·hospital·P3·Port Mann·privatization·Sea-to-Sky Highway·Vancouver General Hospital
P3s: the cubic zirconium of public projects
January 25th, 2009 · Keith Reynolds · Comments Off · BC Election 2009, Privatization, P3s & public services
Jonathan Fowlie and Lori Gilbert did a first rate job of looking at one facet of public private partnerships (P3′s) in the January 23 Vancouver Sun. P3′s are one part of the BC government’s enthusiasm for privatization. Private companies pay for the development of public infrastructure or services and then run the projects for decades [...]
Tags: P3·privatization
