Thank you.
I have a lot to say about that. I'll just try to make it brief.
I have spent over 10 years researching this and publishing on this. I would just say that I don't necessarily dispute the fact that P3s come in on time, on budget, though of course there are many exceptions to that, particularly P3s that were developed in the nineties and 2000s for various reasons. I'll just leave it at that. However, the central dispute I would have with that argument is that it presumes that traditional design-build and other forms of traditional contracting cannot actually perform in that same way. Auditors general, including in Ontario and in countries around the world, have just simply refuted that argument.
Of course, traditional and other forms of contracting can ensure timely delivery on budget. I think for that reason alone, it was presented as if P3s are the only solution, when in fact there's a wide range of procurement forms. There are a lot of other costs that are associated with P3s, so the argument that P3s deliver value for money is not necessarily the same as saying that they're cheaper. If you look at the methodology manual of Infrastructure Ontario, for instance, in regard to base project costs for P3s, or alternative financing and procurement, or whatever they're calling it these days, it makes clear that traditional forms have lower base costs versus AFP or P3. That has to do with lower financing costs and other aspects like that.
This is where it starts to get complicated and maybe I'll just leave it at that. I'll just say a lot of this argument around the P3 superiority rests on the idea of risk transfer, which in fact we pay for through higher risk premiums that are applied to P3 infrastructure versus traditional.