When it comes to the importance of private investment, it can't be emphasized enough that the public debate here misses the really core benefit, which is that transfer of risk. In Canada, when we have public procurement entirely led by the public sector and we have projects like this—a good example is the York University subway extension in Toronto—that go massively over budget and are severely delayed, guess who's on the hook for that? When you have the public sector leading the procurement, taxpayers pay the costs at the end of the day.
When you move to a model where you have private finance so you have that kind of risk-sharing, the risks of the project don't go away, but the key, though, is that it's not the taxpayers in the end who have to pay the bill. This goes to the key importance of making sure that, in Minister Sohi's words, we're investing in “shovel-worthy” and not just “shovel-ready” projects.
It's really important to be picking the right projects. Rushing ahead to get things built without putting in place the proper business plan, which the private sector can help with in establishing what makes some sense, because a private investor is going to have to do a lot of due diligence on projects.... All these sorts of things are really important in making sure we're getting the best bang for our buck.