Further questions?

I just want to give the member an example. Peterborough built a brand new hospital. It cost $364 million. St. Catharines, which was a P3 hospital 10 years ago, cost a million dollars—$700,000 more, almost the exact same hospital. That was under the PC model.

Now you listen to my colleague from Ottawa talk about the LRT. And you made a statement which I thought was very interesting. You said the reason why you like P3s is because they’re delivered on time. Well, my understanding is that the LRT is 430 days late. They’ve had three derailments.

So my question to you is, why are we wasting billions of dollars more of taxpayers’ money with P3s when you can invest that money back into hospitals, schools, roads, infrastructure?

With respect to the Auditor General’s report—which was quite scathing, talking about the mismanagement of Ontario real estate assets by Infrastructure Ontario—being able to cause such a rift in the Auditor General’s report, and now the government is actually suggesting that this ministry be given more responsibility when they’ve mismanaged the assets so poorly.

I’ve heard repeatedly now this government talk about the Ontario Science Centre falling apart and how Ontario Place is being mismanaged, but all of that happened under their watch. How can the member across justify more responsibilities now consolidated in the hands of Infrastructure Ontario when they’ve done such a poor job with the responsibilities they have?

Thank you to the member opposite for that question. As I highlighted in my speech, our government is making unprecedented investments in infrastructure. We’re investing $184 billion in the next 10 years to build new hospitals, new schools, new highways, new long-term-care homes. We’re not leaving any stone unturned when it comes to investing in infrastructure.

The P3 model that the member opposite is speaking about has been a world-class model of building major infrastructure projects in Ontario and around the world. The majority of the projects in P3s are completed on time and within the budget. Ontario has been leading the way in staying the course and delivering infrastructure projects, Madam Speaker. We’re working with our partners, our stakeholders to ensure that we have the world-class infrastructure for the people of Ontario that they deserve. We will get it done.

The rationale behind this bill is to be fiscally prudent, cut red tape, save taxpayer dollars and practise good governance. This bill is another step toward modernizing government process and oversight, and we are also looking at how we can reduce administrative burden on standard infrastructure priorities while maintaining our strong environmental and consultative processes.

Not only are we building schools, but we’re building hospitals, we’re building highways. Most importantly, we are connecting every Ontarian with high-speed Internet. That was neglected by the previous government for far too long, Madam Speaker. No government took action on high-speed Internet. This is the basic infrastructure that every Ontarian deserves, and we are making the largest single investment by any province in the history of Canada to ensure that every—

Also, we’re trying to be more fiscally prudent in this House, to have a holistic view and a central place where decisions are being made. The Auditor General was very clear in her recommendations in terms of finding efficiencies and optimizing office space, and I think it’s very difficult to do that when there are many, many different agencies making various different real estate decisions.

Madam Speaker, I’m glad the member highlighted Ontario Place. Our government made a decision, and we’re very clear with the people of Ontario that we’ll be doing a comprehensive redevelopment of Ontario Place and we’ll bring it back to life. Because this is our heritage, and we are protecting our heritage by doing the comprehensive redevelopment.

Report continues in volume B.