While pleased to announce the Harper government will match the public's donations to the theater, Weston tells CHSJ News he's much less enthusiastic about recent comments by former Commissioner of Municipal Operations Paul Groody, who spoke to a crowd of activists last night on the pitfalls of the P3 model--one of which that they tend to cost up to 16% more than a traditional tendering process.
Weston says his government has done its homework on P3 and one of the benefits is that any cost overruns are the responsibility of the corporate doing the work, not the taxpayers.
He also called it "ironic" that Groody would criticize a public-private partnership on the basis of potential cost overruns when Groody was responsible for Harbour Cleanup. Weston says, as he recalls, that project ended up coming in 20% over budget.
