Transport committee  Again, that's a question of perspective. From my point of view, again, I think that the best kind of accountability is local accountability. I have a huge problem with the issue of free money where one level of government is spending money that it has not raised. All the problems of attribution and shared accountability, they're classic in terms of the problems that we see.

Transport committee  Yes, and again, this is where the tension is. The efficiency and the speed at which these things go through is obviously crucial. By “red tape” I mean bureaucracy that adds very little to the process.

Transport committee  What the left hand is doing. But let me use the example of Lansdowne again, because I think we're all familiar with it in this room. The Lansdowne process did completely away with due diligence. It went against its own procurement policies. It went against the actual law that's set out.

Transport committee  I actually think probably the hybrid framework of the gas tax comes pretty close to that because it does allow some degree of local autonomy. They essentially get to decide, within some constraints, what kinds of projects they want locally, rather than circumventing local priorities, which is what I think happened under stimulus.

Transport committee  I do. My position on P3s is that they're not inherently bad by any means. I think the rules of engagement are key. If you can have the framework for engagement play to a degree of transparency, then that's a huge start. If you look on our own doorstep, we recently had the Lansdowne development in which public engagement was legitimate and yet it was essentially cut short to push something through that was sole-sourced and was also unsolicited.

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for inviting me. My apologies for being late. I actually thought we were over in the Parliament Buildings, so a comedy of errors. But anyway, all's well that ends well. I speak to you today, really, as an individual. I'm an academic in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University.