A now-disbanded Crown corporation has passed its last audit. Investigators said all projects funded by PPP Canada will be completed this year within budget, according to Blacklock's Reporter..“All 24 funded legacy projects inherited by the Department of Infrastructure in 2018 are scheduled to be substantially completed by 2023,” said an internal audit. Spending of the $1.2 billion PPP Canada fund included $602 million for public transit, $324 million for roads and $188 million for water, sewer and waste disposal plants..PPP Canada was launched in 2008 to lure private funds in building new roads, bridges, and utilities across the country. The corporation in its last Annual Report counted 12 projects in operation and an equal number under construction..Cabinet disbanded the agency in 2017 in favour of a new $35 billion Canada Infrastructure Bank in Toronto. PPP Canada legacy projects at the time included a biofuels waste plant in Surrey, the Edmonton Light Rail Transit System, Regina Bypass Road, Iqaluit Airport and a Saint John water treatment plant..“Some projects would not happen without funding as some municipalities have limited capacity to access and qualify for private sector financing,” said a Combined Internal Audit And Evaluation Of The Public Private Partnership Canada Fund. “Project starts would have been delayed.”.PPP Canada was the first federal Crown corporation to close since the 2014 dissolution of Enterprise Cape Breton. It was also the largest federal agency to disband, excluding cases of privatization, since the 1980 wind-up of the Loto-Canada Corporation..Cabinet at the time said PPP Canada had fulfilled its mandate. “One thing that we are unable to do under the PPP Canada arrangement is to take an equity stake in projects,” then-Infrastructure Minister Amarjeet Sohi testified at 2017 hearings of the House of Commons transport committee..Several labour groups, including the Canadian Union of Public Employees, opposed the venture. “You shouldn’t be giving incentives towards so-called public private partnerships,” Paul Moist, then-national president of CUPE, testified at 2016 Commons finance committee hearings..CUPE and others cited the example of the 407 ETR Concession Company Ltd, a private corporation that won a 99-year lease to operate Toronto’s Highway 407 for a $3.1 billion fee. Operators have reported a 25% profit margin..“The public always winds up holding the bag,” said Moist. “It is a very good highway, properly built, built on time, very good for certain investors including some pension funds, but was it in the public interest?”
