Mr. Chairman, that is not in fact the case. We are looking at a P3 procurement approach, first because our policy obligates us to for projects over $50 million. We had a lot of discussion around this whole P3 approach around the bridge, which wasn’t actually a P3 project. It is a recognized, valuable method of building infrastructure that’s used out around the world and across Canada. Issues like public interest are paramount. The value for money has to be demonstrable. Appropriate public control and ownership, as the Minister of Health has said, will be preserved. We have to have a clear accountability framework, and whatever we do on this process, as per our policy, will be fair and transparent and, of course, sufficient and economical. This is an opportunity to put that to work and see.
I point out again, as well, we’re doing a similar type of process with the Mackenzie Valley fibre link, a much smaller project in terms of size and cost but of considerable value in its own right. So, we want to see if this is in fact the case.
There was a lot of heated debate last time and initially there were thoughts that the project of the bridge would be a P3 but that quickly proved not to be the case, so this time we’re taking another look at it. There was a P3 project done way back in the
1990s in the 13th Assembly. First try at it, it was not
an overwhelming success. Very expensive. This whole concept has evolved considerably since then and we will be monitoring it closely. We will be working with committee as we do this step by step and make sure that we hit all these critical principles. Thank you.