Bypass repair roundabout way of showing problems with P3 model

The demands of Saskatchewan people are neither overwhelming nor overly complicated.

Like taxpayers everywhere, they simply want value for money from their government — or whatever entity provides service on behalf of government.

And when it comes to publicprivate partnerships (P3s), there can be acceptable trade-offs.

For example, many see it as acceptable for the Saskatchewan Party government to build P3 schools that may not stick taxpayers with the same capital outlay. The trade-off, however, is the building owner has the right to one day sell the asset (presumably, when it no longer serves the changing demographic needs).

Such arrangements also seem to be accompanied by added maintenance costs for P3 schools and irritants like sealed windows and not being able to tack push-pins or use tape on drywall — issues that have been raised by the NDP and other critics of the government’s P3 approach.

But all this raises the question: Does the P3 model work well in every situation? Recent concerns about a private entity taking 12 hours to respond to immediate maintenance issues at the $1.9-billion Regina bypass may illustrate why that might not be the case.

According to documents obtained by the NDP through Freedom of Information and raised in question period this week, a truck got stuck on the overpass roundabouts connecting Highway 46 and Highway 1 near Balgonie in September 2017, setting off a chain of events bordering on the ridiculous.

Other trucks were forced into Balgonie, which had been blocked from direct access to the Trans-Canada Highway. That meant truck drivers getting out and removing barriers, the FOI documents said. Worse, the problem was not rectified for 12 hours.

“From what I can tell, the person who was called failed to act on the call,” a highways ministry official wrote in an email in the FOI package.

New Highways Minister Lori Carr told the assembly that added costs to fix such problems are “all built right into the contract” and insisted safety concerns are paramount to her government.

However, when asked by reporters later in the legislature’s rotunda about the 12-hour delay in repairs, Carr responded: “I think once the issue was figured out, that it was fixed in a timely enough fashion, yes.”

Challenged on the notion that it was addressed in a timely fashion, Carr then said: “When it’s an issue of safety, time doesn’t matter.”

Huh? Isn’t time always of the essence in matters of safety?

The then- Sask. Party Opposition rightly went ballistic in January 2007 over the audacity of the Saskatchewan Government and General Employees Union (SGEU) even thinking about pulling its snowplow operators off the road during rotating strikes as the biggest snowstorm in 50 years approached.

In the end, SGEU didn’t, because it was deemed unreasonable to Saskatchewan people who are owed minimal expectations when it comes to public safety.

Shouldn’t Carr and her government have equal expectations when it comes maintenance safety issues at the P3 bypass where there already have been valid safety concerns raised over the designs of overpasses?

In fairness to Carr, government officials clarified that what she was attempting to say is that it is “important not to rush the appropriate way to address a situation.”

Carr confirmed Wednesday that was the point she was trying to make and added that the bypass means we are no longer regularly seeing the Jaws of Life tending to crash scenes between Regina and Balgonie.

But as the NDP rightly noted, that doesn’t address questions about the delays and safety specific to the FOI incident ... or even how such maintenance arrangements have contributed to the exorbitant $1.9-billion price tag. If anything, this underscores how the P3 model may not be working here.

Rather than justifying its own spending, Carr and her government, at minimum, must demand the same accountability from private maintenance providers that the Sask. Party once demanded from unionized snowplow operators.

It’s not complicated. Taxpayers have a right to safe, reasonably priced services — regardless of who provides them.