The decision to do a long-term private deal to build and maintain the new Kingston rehab and mental health hospital suggests the McGuinty government is ramping up its efforts once again to engage in major privatization of Ontario’s infrastructure.
In Ontario the P3 brand – P3 representing “private-public-partnerships” – has been repeatedly damaged by deals that have clearly not been in the public interest.
There is a Mike Constable comic that shows the private partner eating the public partner – a likely accurate analogy to the present situation.
Ontarians are still vexed by the giveaway of Highway 407 north of Toronto, one of the most expensive and profitable toll roads in the world. The folly of public-private partnerships was visible to all when the McGuinty government found they didn’t even have the power to limit rate hikes on the toll road.
Let’s not forget the government tried to rebrand the P3s as “alternative financing and procurement” projects (AFP) – a moniker that failed to get any traction, especially when the Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships continued to place these projects on their website as P3s, not AFPs.
Ontario has far more P3 projects underway than all other provinces combined.
OPSEU Diablogue 