Transport committee  Certainly. I will speak generally and then ask my colleagues Marc Brazeau and Nicholas Wilkshire to add to my answer. The first example is that normally ministers do have authority to enter into agreements within their purview. In this case, for the minister responsible for the

Transport committee  The team has come together over the last couple of months. Indeed, we are working very well together. We have reached many milestones already. The first one is in the procurement process. The first stage is the request for qualifications. That is the first major step in moving fo

Transport committee  The first stage is that there was time put in the planning period. We have been working very closely with our top consultant in the engineering area, and also the legal consultants as well. In terms of advancing that timeline, we did spend a lot of time in terms of planning the n

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, we did an assessment, comparing the traditional method with respect to the P3 methodology. The studies and the analysis have shown that the P3 would generate better value for Canadian taxpayers. We are expected to have cost savings in the order of 5%, to I think it is

Transport committee  There is a dedicated integrated team working on this file. The team is composed of expert professionals from Transport Canada with experience in bridges. We also have experts from PPP Canada, with expertise in the market and bringing together the P3 experience. We have colleagues

Transport committee  Mr. Chairman, the answer to that question is that we did preliminary analysis that was part of the business case, and it was shown that there might be some diversion, but given that we still have data gaps, we are in the process of obtaining more information. We do have traffic c

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, the procurement process started with the announcement in December 2013, a couple of months ago.

Transport committee  We are in the process of selecting the private partner.

Transport committee  We will have a private partner selected in the spring of 2015.

Transport committee  Mr. Chair, that is correct. We also want to make sure that the procurement process has all of the integrity elements included in it. As you all know, this project is a project in the order of $3 billion to $5 billion, so we want to make sure that the bidders and the procurement

Transport committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, and committee members. My name is Thao Pham. I'm the assistant deputy minister for the federal Montreal bridges with Infrastructure Canada. Joining me this morning are Marc Brazeau, director general of the new bridge for the St. Lawrence with Infrastruct