November 22, 2004

Panel Discussion: “The Urgency of Addressing Canada’s Infrastructure Crisis”
by David Caplan, Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal

Check against delivery

Thank you, Peter.

I’m sure it escapes no one here that public-private partnerships are being described as a cure for the infrastructure deficit.

Ontario has a long tradition of collaboration with the private sector. Even in sectors with dedicated public ownership and control, such as water, sewer, hospital and publicly funded school assets, our government looks to partnerships with the private sector as one of the important options for financing and delivering public infrastructure.

That’s why our government developed a formal framework, called Building a Better Tomorrow, to guide the way we will approach financing and procurement for the province’s public infrastructure and the way in which we will effectively engage the private sector, where appropriate, in building and renewing vital public assets and optimizing public-private collaboration.

It’s the first time Ontario has done this. We recognize that we need more investment and a more strategic approach to financing and building our public infrastructure.

The framework sets out the policies, procedures and directives the Government of Ontario will use to evaluate and make decisions about proposals to build public infrastructure projects. 

We want to ensure that our investments in public infrastructure follow five fundamental principles in that they are delivered in a transparent, responsible, accountable, and cost-effective wayand that they put the public’s interest first.

Establishing a long-term infrastructure vision for the renewal of Ontario’s public infrastructure – a vision that recognizes, under certain conditions, the strategic value and importance of public and private sector partnerships, including investments from pension funds and others – will ensure that Ontarians and our future generations have the high quality services they need and deserve. This is our common goal.

We all understand the need to maintain, renew and rebuild the hospitals that care for the ill, the institutions that educate our young, the pipes that carry safe, clean water, and the highway and transit systems that we use daily.

This spring, the government will unveil the first five years of our strategic infrastructure plan. This plan will address immediate and future public infrastructure needs. It will also be the basis of consultations with stakeholders to guide the development of our ten-year plan for release later next year.

And we plan to be bold in our approach. The status quo will simply not work.

As I said, we are currently exploring different models for how the government might approach financing major projects.

Let me offer an example. We are actively exploring design/build/finance concepts – even in the sectors that I mentioned with dedicated public ownership and control, such as water, sewer, hospital and publicly funded school assets.

We recognize that this approach does not have to change the conditions of public ownership or public control over operations. And the public interest remains paramount.

Such an arrangement with the private sector does offer many benefits for government; these include:

1. Better harnessing the private sector’s expertise, creativity and innovation for solutions;
2. Allowing the private sector to assume some of the risks of project completion, including cost-over-runs;
3. And providing access to greater pools of capital to deliver the government’s infrastructure priorities, thereby allowing the government to deliver more public infrastructuremore efficiently, on time and on budget.

This is just one model we are looking at. As we re-engineer methods of financing and delivering infrastructure, we will look to the private sector to help bridge the gap between the investment required and the ability of government to keep pace with that investment.

Our purpose is to enhance public services and, by instituting a better way of building public infrastructure, we will help deliver the real, positive change that will make Ontario strong, healthy and prosperous.

With this thought in mind, I am going to end my remarks. I am as eager as you, to hear the thoughts of my fellow panellists.

Thank you.