John McCallum at the Government Operations and Estimates Committee

On October 16th, 2012. See this statement in context.

October 16th, 2012 / 10 a.m.

Liberal

John McCallum Liberal Markham—Unionville, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I'm a little concerned that who I might call the four pro-PPP people didn't answer very directly the points made by the one less pro-PPP person, Mr. Mackenzie, in particular when he said that a one percentage point difference in interest rate can have a very large effect. Then I noticed in the Globe and Mail article yesterday by Barrie McKenna that he cited academic research regarding 28 Ontario PPP projects that says they cost 16% more than conventional ones.

I notice in this document by John Loxley that he refers to a Moncton water treatment P3 plant that has a lease equivalent to a 10% interest rate, when the city could have paid less than 6%.

So there seems to be significant evidence in various places that P3s often cost more. How would you respond to that?

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