Transport committee  Absolutely. That purchase of a pipeline was such a grossly wrong decision. Listen, it's been repeated here time and time again that somehow this is going to ease the burden on the taxpayer, this P3 model. This is complete nonsense. If there's a billion-dollar project and you have a P3 model where the private guy is expecting 10% to 15%, the taxpayer has to find another $100 million to $150 million to pay those people for their role.

Transport committee  I don't share the attitude of some members of the committee who are disparaging McKinsey. I think this is something we call “corporate capture” at the Council of Canadians, where think tanks, lobbyists and others who represent Bay Street and, sometimes, global finance capital have taken public policy and shifted it dramatically.

Transport committee  There are a variety of experiences, but largely what happens is one of two things. The proponents are largely consortia, and it is important to understand how big these projects have become and why it's often many global firms that are bidding on infrastructure here in Canada. The proponents have to put in extra cost to take into account the unknown.

Transport committee  You're absolutely right. Independent audit studies that have looked at the P3 experiences have almost universally said this actually costs more and delivers less, whether they're cutting corners, whether they're reducing the wages of workers or whether it's the precarity of workers.

Transport committee  The criteria is changing. My view is that there's been a mission creep from the very crude privatization things that were happening before—Highway 407, and other things that people just see as a complete outreach—and the original P3 model, which was design-build finance. Design-build is only one way of doing construction as compared to the traditional, and there are pros and cons, but it's the creep of adding “maintain an operation” that strips public accountability and public control.

Transport committee  Thanks. My name is John Cartwright. I'm the chair of the Council of Canadians, which is one of the largest civil society organizations in the country dedicated to defending the public good. Our opposition to infrastructure public-private partnerships is rooted in our experience fighting water privatization in all of its forms.