The Toronto South Detention Centre is a provincially sponsored internment facility. It's one of the largest in Canada. It holds 2,000 individuals. The Government of Ontario, at that point, decided to procure this facility through a PPP concession agreement that allowed the private sector to design the facility the way it felt would be most efficient for providing the services the province was seeking. It allowed the private sector to build the facility after the design, to finance the facility, and to maintain the facility for a period of 30 years. The maintenance firm and the contractor were at the table as the facility was designed and built with maintenance in mind.
The capital involved—the debt and equity, the private sector money used to actually pay the contractor and pay the designer—is at risk if the facility doesn't behave a certain way. Remember: the government is purchasing a service. The service is to provide a place for 2,000 individuals, house them, feed them, secure them, and so on.
The capital is simply there to facilitate risk allocation to the partners within the team that can best manage the risk. That means that the construction risk is pushed down to the contractor. The maintenance risk is pushed down to the operator. Because we have capital at risk, we are watching the contractor, the designer, and the maintenance firm that maintains the building to make sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do. This way, the government gets the service it contracted for.
It made sense for the government, ultimately. The government felt that it would get more value for money by doing it through a service contract of a PPP type than it would if it actually had to procure the facility through a separate construction contract and then take over the facility and maintain the facility itself.
They did an evaluation. It showed that if we did it, this is what we would spend. If we maintained it, this is what we would spend. They risk-adjusted those numbers. You have to appreciate that they added risk, because when the government builds, it doesn't always build on time. When government maintains, it doesn't always maintain on budget, either. They did that evaluation and found that the PPP process provided value for money. It was less expensive and it gave them the service they were contracting for.