Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Division 3 of part 4 of this budget implementation bill asks that PPP Canada Inc. be recognized as an agent of Her Majesty for its activities with federal agencies, including the provision of advisory services to departments on P3 capital projects. As a result, PPP Canada Inc. will act as a source of expertise on P3s for federal departments.
As you know, Mr. Chair, the Champlain Bridge is in my riding of Brossard—La Prairie. When we asked the witnesses questions, I was sort of taken aback, because the Minister of Transport made the famous statement “No toll, no bridge”, and he also said that the project was going to be carried out according to the P3 model. Engineering experts have carried out some studies. One of those studies was the consortium BCDE study mandated by the federal and provincial governments and it looked at the various options for building the new Champlain Bridge. According to those studies, the construction costs for a bridge based on the P3 model would be higher than if the construction was funded by the public.
As far as we are concerned, PPP Canada Inc.'s objective is to convert everything into P3s. We also asked the officials from the Department of Finance some questions and they told us that no decisions had yet been made at the Department of Finance. So we have two versions.
The goal of this amendment is to convert everything into P3s. And since the NDP is not in favour of the P3 model overall, because we want a more thorough study to be done, we are going to vote against that division.