Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. McBride, for coming in.
Before asking a couple of questions, I just want to salute the chair. We're really working across party lines in a general spirit of inquiry. We're trying to examine P3 investments as a long-term critical challenge for Canada. So we'll always be advocates. We are partisan in our way, but we really try to understand the advantages and disadvantages of P3. What are some of the pitfalls and what can we learn?
You mentioned that there are Canadian firms that have developed a lot of expertise. The Confederation Bridge is a great example of a P3, a big engineering challenge, a big financial challenge. I like to think of some of the firms that were involved in getting that construction project brought to fruition. Strait Crossing Development Inc. is using the expertise it's developed to do P3 projects around the world. They are working on the metro transit tunnels in Seattle and the Gdansk Grain Terminal in Poland. Another of the partners was Borealis Infrastructure, which is an interesting entity because they are owned by OMERS, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System. They have about $50 billion in P3 assets that they are investing in about 20 projects around the world. Their portfolio includes things that are not traditional infrastructure, like a satellite that is providing North American distribution services, and life labs, providing diagnostic services.
So what is it about Canada that makes us a world leader in P3s?