Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to indicate that I do support the Public/Private Partnership concept. We have discussed this for some time. There were some Members asking for this particular initiative to come forward prior to Cabinet bringing it forward. We have discussed it, as I indicated, in many different forums and also at the Ordinary Members Caucus level. The motion will be coming forward that I will be supporting which we have all agreed to. Mr. Chairman, in addition to that, I wanted to indicate that I do not believe the larger centres should be kept out of the picture just because they are larger centres. We all should have a chance at these P3 projects. We all have private businesses within our communities that need the business. As well, most of us have local development corporations or local construction notices that belong to the bands or the Metis locals that can go to partnership with larger construction companies and that type of thing. Mr. Chairman, I understand some Members' concerns that the smaller communities should have an equal opportunity and I agree. They should have an equal opportunity, but just because the larger communities are larger, they should not be discounted either.
The other thing I wanted to indicate is that these projects should be spread around and that one community, just for argument's sake, say the community of Iqaluit, should not get ten projects and some place else like Arviat, gets none. The projects, I believe, have to be considered as to where they are going, not just the financial benefits and the rest of this. We also have to ensure they are spread out so all regions can benefit from the initiative.
There are a few other concerns I have. One has to do with potential monopolistic behaviour by the private partners. Private partners can exhibit monopolistic behaviour after the project has been put into place and which may increase the cost in the long run, particularly with longer-term commitments. Sometimes, from past projects we have seen where a developer can have exclusive rights to an infrastructure facility and this, of course, is what we are talking about, a practical monopoly. It could cost more in the long run, so we have to ensure this type of thing does not occur.
Also, I would hope that financing these projects is not done through the regular use of short-term bank loans. We all know that with short-term bank loans you have to pay extra interest costs, so it would be nice if we can figure out a way that these types of costs are not incurred.
Also, to go along with the idea that the project should be spread out, we want to guard against perpetualization of contracts in a sense, so that the same contractors are not in a bunch of different projects with different people, then there is maybe one or two larger companies involved with a huge amount of contracts which creates a monopoly. Hopefully, there will be measures implemented into this as well. The other thing, in Nova Scotia, I understand, the government was recently forced to extend large interest free loans to P3 private partners. The private sector could not raise the funds to cover construction costs as they had anticipated. I would hope that our government takes measures to ensure that we will not be placed in a position of undue risk should a private partner, involved in any particular venture, not be able to fulfil their financial obligations. One other area which I suppose has been brought up at some other time, is the cost of preparing proposals. It does cost money for businesses, for anybody, to put together a proposal, therefore, we must ensure that we are not getting people to put forward proposals and that type of thing if we are not actually going to go ahead with the project. We have to guard against that, because there is no sense in making people spend a bunch of money if it is not necessary. That, Mr. Chairman, once again, I indicate my support for this particular proposal based on Yellowknife getting a few proposals.
--Laughter
Mr. Chairman, as long as there are adequate measures put in place to ensure that projects are spread out and the risks involved are spread out amongst the government and the private partners. We do not want the government to take the most risk and winding up footing the bill in the end. Thank you.