Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, thank you to all of our witnesses.
A lot of this discussion has focused on perceived conflict of interest, and I think the thing about perceived conflict is that a lot of it has to do with the perceiver, not necessarily the party being perceived. Ms. O'Connell's point that these relationships were very similar under a Conservative government I think points to the larger, systemic issue, which is corporate capture when it comes to these infrastructure investments and the role of consulting companies, their clients and the individuals involved.
I would go back to that Globe and Mail article from 2017. The journalist interviewed “a source with extensive government and private sector experience in the infrastructure sector”, who was quoted as saying, “It does seem cozy and not typical of arm's length advisory processes.” There are certainly people looking at this whole advisory council-CIB-McKinsey situation and saying that it seems pretty cozy, and not something that we would typically want to see when we're talking about billions of dollars of public money being spent.
My question is around risk transfer. One of the main advantages that's often touted for public-private partnerships is the transfer of risk off the public sector onto the private sector. However, we see the bank involved in investments that transfer risk from the private sector onto the public sector.
My question, perhaps, to Mr. Barton, is this: Why should Canadian taxpayers take on risk that the private sector isn't willing to bear?