Release of financial details about jail delayed

Judge orders new inquiry for Herald’s request for model for Okanagan Correctional Centre

It’s back to square one for The Herald in its bid to unlock the financial model underlying the Okanagan Correctional Centre.

Following a two-day judicial review hearing in February in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver, a judge this week quashed a December 2016 order from the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner that granted release of the model to The Herald following an inquiry.

The judge instead sent the matter back to the OIPC for a new inquiry.

It’s unclear how long that inquiry will take, as the OIPC currently has a backlog of three months to even assign adjudicators to cases.

The financial model details in part the relationship between the B.C. government and Plenary Justice, which was hired to design, build, finance and maintain the jail as a public-private partnership.

The Herald first sought a copy of the model — a 597-page spreadsheet — in August 2014 through a freedom of information request to the B.C. government.

The request was denied by the government, which cited potential harm to Plenary Justice’s business interests.

The Herald appealed that decision to the OIPC, which ruled in favour of the newspaper and ordered release of the information. The adjudicator found the model formed part of a contract and was therefore subject to negotiation, making it public information.

The release was put in limbo, however, when Plenary Justice filed in January 2017 for the judicial review, at which it argued at least some of the information in the model is proprietary and could not have been negotiated. Justice Douglas Thompson agreed. “To take just one example, there is information as to the amount Plenary Group had to pay its subcontractors,” Thompson wrote in his decision.

“This information was not susceptible to change in the negotiations between the government and Plenary Group. It was not negotiated or negotiable.”

Thompson, who saw the financial model in camera, went on to suggest the next OIPC adjudicator undertake a more thorough analysis “in order to sort the immutable (nonnegotiable) wheat from the negotiable chaff.”

So far, partial release of information from The Herald’s original FOI request revealed the 30-year deal with Plenary Justice is worth $419.2 million in 2015 dollars.

According to schedules of payments, the B.C. government anted up $72.3 million during construction and will hand over another $255.6 million in capital payments over the life of the contract.

That would seem to put the true capital cost of the jail at $327.9 million — nearly double the $192.9-million sticker price.

In addition, Plenary Justice will receive monthly life-cycle payments totalling $28.3 million and maintenance fees totalling $63 million.

It’s unclear exactly what’s covered by those fees or the effective interest rate to taxpayers resulting from Plenary Justice financing the jail through the private bond market.

Plenary Justice’s parent company is privately held and headquartered in Australia. It boasts of operating 44 P3 projects around the world worth a combined $32 billion.

Full disclosure: The Herald was represented at the judicial review by city editor Joe Fries, who filed the original FOI request and made submissions on the newspaper’s behalf.