HALIFAX: The NDP say improvements to Highway 104 are necessary and will increase safety along that section of the provincial highway network but using the public private partnership (P3) model is the wrong decision.
“We have seen over and over again that public-private partnerships are not in the best interest of the province,” Susan Leblanc, NDP Transportation and Infrastructure renewal spokesperson told The Reporter. “The McNeil government is using P3s for highways and hospital infrastructure which the NDP believes is the wrong choice.”
According to research by Christopher Majka, the author of the recently released report titled “Highway Robbery: Public Private Partnerships and Nova Scotia Highways,” a P3 model for the Highway 104 twinning project could potentially end up costing $119.2 million in unnecessary additional costs.
Leblanc believes that’s a bad deal undermining good jobs in a part of the province that needs them.
“Traditional builds create good, well-paying jobs for local residents,” she said. “P3 builds on the other hand take control out of the hands of the government which is footing the bill and cost more than traditional builds in the long run.”
Like so many other projects under the McNeil government, Leblanc said the lack of transparency has been frustrating.
“Earlier this month Liberal members of the Public Accounts Committee tried to block the issue of P3 highways coming to the committee,” she indicated. “If the government has proof P3s are the right choice, the public deserves to see it.”
Leblanc doesn’t think the government wants Nova Scotians to see how much they are subsidizing the profits of private companies to build public infrastructure with public money, when it would be more cost-effective and transparent to do it using public money.
She said the public deserves to know why the Liberal government is going down a route that has failed Nova Scotians before – previously indicating we’re still paying millions of dollars for P3 schools the Liberals built 20-years-ago.
“The CCPA recently found that the P3 Cobequid Pass cost $232 million more as a P3 project than it would have as a public build,” Leblanc said. “We know that P3 highway projects aren’t good value for money for Nova Scotians.”