[Stormer]

Originally Posted by Bdog

Yes Chaps, I've done graduate research on P3 infrastructure projects, so yes, I do know what P3 stands for. However, the "partnership" in P3 rarely ever means, "feds will contribute to a project because the private sector is".

Rather, in P3s, the government contracts a private firm to Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO) a public infrastructure project, who will have a contract to operate that infrastructure for the length of the concession. It's the private sector who puts up most of the money up front, plans most of the project, and bears a significant share of the fianncial risk. Other times, (in a BOT contract), the private sector builds, operates (for the length of the concession), and then turns over the infrastructure back to the government.

In these stadium cases, the projects are government led, primarily government financed, and the government will definitely be taking on all the financial risk (ie: don't expect the private sector to cover cost overruns, or fund potential operating losses). Just because a few private sector firms are rumoured to be donating funds (whether through sponsorships, or through the goodness of their hearts) does NOT make these deals P3 in the P3 sense. Not even close...

Yes that may be the conventional definition of a P3 but the P3 Canada Fund will allow projects where the private sector merely bears construction risk and does not necessarily need to own or operate the facility after it is completed.