Thanks very much.
That's a very good question, and I'll give it my best shot.
Public-private partnerships are obviously a very useful tool when they're applied carefully and for the right kind of project. They can use private sector incentives to get projects built on time and on budget, which has very obvious benefits.
In terms of the capital structure for a project, P3s in Canada primarily involve financing through loans for a portion of the project's costs. These loans still ultimately have to be repaid by governments, usually a municipality, through availability payments, in order to pay for the costs of the infrastructure.
I think I'd say that what the government heard in its consultations is that there's a need to help build more infrastructure than can be done just through the public purse, and that municipalities, in particular, have limits on the amounts that they're able and willing to borrow to pay for infrastructure. What the infrastructure bank would be able to do is bring an additional party to the table for the funding of projects so that it doesn't rest only on all three levels of government. This would free up public funding for other projects, including infrastructure, that wouldn't have the required revenue stream, like social housing, for instance.
In order to attract that private sector investment, and also do it in a way that protects taxpayers properly, a new institution was needed that would have the right level of expertise and could be the counterparty for the negotiations with sophisticated private sector equity investors. I think part of the vision with the infrastructure bank is that it's a different skill set than the functions of PPP Canada, which are focused on providing advice for structure and procurement contracts, as Glenn mentioned, that are delivered through P3s.