Carney won’t win hearts with another elitist climate plan
Mark Carney at an informal campaign stop on Feb. 16, 2025. Photo from Facebook/Mark Carney
In the space of a mere few weeks, the Canadian political terrain has shifted dramatically. Between Prime Minister Trudeau’s imminent departure and Trump’s attacks on Canada’s economy and sovereignty, a Conservative majority led by Pierre Poilievre in the coming months no longer seems like a foregone conclusion. In an otherwise bleak global landscape, many in Canada are breathing a sigh of relief that polls are showing a stunning collapse in the Conservatives’ lead, especially when poll respondents are asked to consider a Mark Carney-led Liberal Party.
And yet, I remain nervous. While I am among those delighted to see the polls tightening, Carney is not without his vulnerabilities. And let us recall all the excitement when Kamala Harris took over the helm of the U.S. Democrats last summer and the polls caught positive Harris-Walz momentum. But it plateaued too soon. Her message failed to sufficiently excite (and in many cases alienated a progressive base). Trump still won.
Carney’s climate plan, in particular, risks handing fodder to Poilievre while failing to captivate the climate-anxious voter.
Carney’s record indicates that he “gets” climate. He purports to understand the threat. He has served as a U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action. That’s the good news, and makes for a stark contrast with the Conservative leader. And Carney is clearly better than the other leading Liberal leadership candidate — Chrystia Freeland — when it comes to climate; Freeland has been widely seen within the climate movement as the principal blocker of more ambitious climate policy within Trudeau’s cabinet. (At the time of writing, the third-ranked Liberal leadership hopeful, Karina Gould, has yet to release a climate platform.)
Much has been made of Carney’s pivot to end the consumer carbon tax. Fine — I never put much stock in the tax as a major reducer of emissions relative to its huge political cost. And Carney is right to refocus on the industrial carbon price. It’s what he's proposing — and not proposing — in place of the consumer carbon price that has me worried.
First off, I challenge you to read the Carney climate plan (you can find it here) and keep your eyes from glazing over. It is the product of wonky, technocratic brains that you would never want on the doorstep. The Carney plan calls for an improved “output-based pricing system” for industrial emitters; a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” to prevent “carbon leakage” and ensure fairness for “energy-intensive, trade-exposed sectors”; an “efficiency mandate for low-temperature industrial heat”; investment tax credits; “carbon contracts for difference to de-risk climate investments”; implementing a “transition taxonomy” to guide sustainable investments in priority sectors; and mandating “climate risk disclosure for companies across Canada.”
You still with me?
I’m not opposed to many of these measures. But overall, this plan doubles down on an approach that has failed to meaningfully bend the curve on our carbon pollution. There is a heavy emphasis on “incentives” to encourage households and business to do the right thing, along with a deep and abiding faith in market-based solutions — a belief that if only the private sector had to properly account for and disclose its climate risks, while being further enticed with the right mix of price and tax signals, businesses will finally transition as the science says is necessary.
Nope. This is a futile approach that will never see us achieve the speed and scale of what the climate emergency demands.
One would think that Carney’s own ill-fated attempt to get global financial firms to voluntarily adhere to climate commitments — an effort that has largely collapsed in recent months as major banks and investment firms have withdrawn from the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) Carney spearheaded, while showing no signs of tempering their fossil fuel investments — would lead to a rethink of this model. Yet his platform gives no such indication.
Absent from Carney’s climate plan is a clear connection to jobs and inequality. There is no grand industrial strategy here, nor a compelling and imaginative counter-offer to workers and communities that currently feel tied to the fossil fuel sector. Surprisingly, Carney’s climate plan (so far anyway) does not include mention of the Youth Climate Corps, even though the Liberal government is currently engaged in national consultations on the idea and despite the Young Liberals of Canada making the establishment of a YCC one of their top priority calls to the Liberal leadership candidates.
The focus on esoteric and technocratic policy not only fails to excite most voters and alienates many working people (a failing about which I’ve written previously), it also reinforces the Conservative critique that the Liberal approach to climate is elitist.
Carney’s climate plan also lacks passion and emotion about the urgency to confront this generational challenge. There is nothing about how this crisis poses a severe threat to the people and places we love.
We are also not hearing Carney name the fossil fuel industry itself as the culprits who are blocking progress on this task of our lives, nor has he indicated a preparedness to bring on the fight with these corporations, let alone tax their windfall profits. On the contrary, in a recent interview Carney did with CBC’s Rosemary Barton he expresses support for new fossil fuel infrastructure, including a west-east oil pipeline. Now that will surely give many climate-concerned voters pause.
Either Carney needs to up his climate game, or failing that, this could be an opening for the federal NDP, if only they choose to claim it. There are a few million climate-anxious voters in Canada — people who rank climate as one of their top concerns — and how they decide to vote could make the difference in a number of ridings, including some key ones the NDP hopes to retain or acquire. As “anybody-but-Conservative” voters wrestle, as they always do, with how to strategically cast their ballots, the NDP would be wise to position themselves as the party that will prioritize the protection of “the people and places we love.” If Carney is ceding territory on the left, that oughta be good news for the NDP. And yet, so far the polls are telling a different story.
The current Trump-induced crisis is no time to beat a path back to the old fossil fuel economy — it’s a chance to leap into the new. It’s not a time to merely incentivize progress — it’s a time that demands ambitious national industrial policy to rapidly re-localize and decarbonize our economy, thereby making us less tied to the U.S. economy. If Carney remains stuck offering more of the same, Jagmeet Singh could and should offer emergency leadership. Whether he will remains to be seen.
February 20th 2025
Columnist
Comments
Klein: "this could be an opening for the federal NDP, if only they choose to claim it"
The NDP have had seven years to claim leadership on climate issues. Under Jagmeet Singh, they have steadfastly resisted the opportunity. In fact, the NDP retreated from carbon pricing before the Liberals did.
The nuts and bolts of climate policy — the “output-based pricing system” for industrial emitters and a “carbon border adjustment mechanism” — are not the stuff of retail politics. The wonky details should be omitted from leadership speeches and election campaigns.
Climate policy is seldom sexy, but if Carney wants to sell Canadians on climate action, he should come out big and bold on massive investments in public transit, urban and regional, and climate-friendly public housing. Youth Climate Corps is another good idea.
Stuff that has an immediate visible impact. Stuff that excites the electorate. Stuff the O&G industry cannot attack. In the meantime, Ottawa should quietly wind down O&G subsidies.
No more taxpayer-funded pipelines.
Klein: "I never put much stock in the tax as a major reducer of emissions relative to its huge political cost"
In Scandinavian countries, carbon pricing is uncontroversial. Sweden, Norway, and Finland adopted carbon pricing in 1990 followed by Denmark in 1992.
Carbon pricing has a "huge political cost" in Canada because the O&G lobby led by the Conservatives attacked it with all guns. Lots of smoke, lots of noise, but the Conservatives were firing blanks.
The politically inept Liberals failed to anticipate the Conservatives' baseless attacks on carbon pricing. The Liberals never bothered to properly advertise and explain the rebate side of the equation. Left undefended, the policy failed.
Climate policy does not sell itself. Carbon pricing with dividend is progressive policy that leaves modest-income households better off.
Axing the tax benefits the rich, energy hogs, and the O&G industry. Low-income households stand to lose the most.
If you oppose fossil-fuel subsidies, you should support carbon pricing.
The biggest subsidy of all is invisible. The price drivers pay at the pump excludes most of the climate, environmental, and health costs. Producers and consumers externalize or download these costs to the public purse, the environment, and future generations. Massive invisible subsidy.
Carbon pricing upholds the polluter-pay principle. No more free ride.
Global warming represents the greatest market failure in history.
Fossil fuel producers and consumers use the sky as a free dump.
What's the solution? Carbon pricing.
In a rational market, we need to pay the full price of the full, true, actual costs of the goods and services we produce and consume. That goes for all goods and services, not just fossil fuels. Anything else is voodoo economics.
The fossil-fuel industry remains viable and hugely profitable precisely because producers and consumers are permitted to externalize most of the climate, environmental, and health costs.
We need true pricing, regardless of climate change.
Renewables and sustainable alternatives need a level playing field. They cannot compete fairly as long as fossil fuels enjoy an artificial price advantage.
The market is rigged in favor of fossil fuels. Time to unrig it.
Totally agree with your points, this only became an issue based on poor information by the Liberals when implemented and that Pierre Poilievre's disinformation campaign that his supporters took as fact, including the disinformation talking points. Add the fact that his supporters are incapable of fact checking any of the garbage that Pee Pee spews.
The big banks, especially Canadian banks, continue to support expansion of fossil fuel extraction. You would think that Carney, as a supreme banker, would tell us how he will force the banks to change their priorities and redirect their capital toward renewable energies.
Carney does reiterate regularly that world investments in renewables are rocketing ahead of investments in the fossil industry. Canadian banks aren't paying enough attention, and they stand to be caught in the stranded asset trap, especially if US refineries start to retool for their own light oil and wean themselves off of heavy Canadian bitumen. See the Energi Media video linked in my comment below.
Alex wrote: "Carney does reiterate regularly that world investments in renewables are rocketing ahead of investments in the fossil industry."
Once again, this statement is erroneous.
Check the IEA's graph.
Global investment in clean energy and fossil fuels, 2015-2024 (first graph)
Fossil fuels: $US 1,116 B (2024)
Renewable power: $US 771 B (2024)
IEA: World Energy Investment 2024 report: Overview and key findings
https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2024/overview-and-k…
The ratio is 1.45:1 in favor of fossil fuels.
Mr. Botta conflates "renewables" (solar and wind) with "clean technology" — a broad IEA category that includes renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps. Not a valid comparison.
Renewables is not synonymous with "clean technology", but a subset of that category.
A crucial difference.
After falling off in 2020 (first pandemic year), fossil fuel investment has increased year over year — and has returned to 2019 levels.
As long as we burn fossil fuels, atmospheric GHG levels will increase.
Increasing fossil fuel use implies an even faster increase in GHG levels.
As long as global energy demand grows faster than renewables do, fossil fuels and nuclear will make up the difference.
To slow climate change, renewables must supplant fossil fuels, not merely supplement them.
Even if fossil fuel use peaks this decade, the IEA and other analysts project a decades-long plateau, not a precipitous drop-off. In which case, GHG emissions will plateau, not decline.
Not a good outlook.
Erroneous narratives give people false hope and/or feed into a sense of complacency.
"..."renewables" (solar and wind) with "clean technology" — a broad IEA category that includes renewables, electric vehicles, nuclear power, grids, storage, low-emissions fuels, efficiency improvements and heat pumps. Not a valid comparison.
Renewables is not synonymous with "clean technology", but a subset of that category.
A crucial difference."
***
How does overall non-fossil based electrification NOT constitute a net reduction in fossil fuel demand? This year the direct solar + wind + geothermal (etc.) + electrification and energy efficiency investment efforts is estimated to come close to or reach three trillion bucks. That leads to one humongous non-combustion buildout. It doesn't make sense to discount power distribution from power generation.
Moreover, there is a lag time between investment and construction completion. For example, Vancouver's Broadway Subway project is now about 2/3rds complete with opening slated for late 2026. The 40/40/20 federal/provincial/regional funding formula was finalized in Trudeau's first mandate, once John Horgan defeated Christy Clark in BC in 2017 July. There were delays related to the pandemic supply chain disruption and during a labour dispute that added nearly two years to the project timeline, a total now of seven years. Even without delays, a project of this scope takes at least five years at best. But the effects are not in doubt. The high density development in the works around the rapid transit stations is phenomenal, and most of them have greatly reduced or eliminated parking and car dependency dramatically. Critics focus on the urban design (I'm one of them) , but the transit orientation and estimated emissions reduction over the lifespan of the subway line and buildings is undeniably very potent.
That nearly $800B in direct worldwide investments in renewables and over $US1 trillion in electrification last year will be bearing fruit in 3-8 years, depending on the scope of each project. Once connected, all that electrical infrastructure will have a direct impact on fossil fuel demand.
This is just how it is after 200 years of carbon build out. It's telling how quickly Europe is electrifying compared to the rest of the world. It's also telling how little prepared we all are to adapt to the global warming still to come as the electrification lagtime plays out, and as the oceans and forests recover up to the carbon budget limits.
By all means, build build build everything through electrification, but let's not exclude the necessary electrical distribution infrastructure from the actual generation. They will not work without each other.
At issue is your claim: that global investments in renewables currently exceed investments in the fossil industry.
Clearly not true, per the IEA's graph.
One day we will get there, but we have not passed that milestone yet. It is false to claim otherwise.
How does overall non-fossil based electrification NOT constitute a net reduction in fossil fuel demand?
Global energy demand is growing faster than renewables supply. The difference is largely made up by fossil fuels (the nuclear share curve is nearly flat since 2000). Both renewables and fossil fuels are growing. Investment in fossil fuels still exceeds investment in renewables.
Electrification can proceed without renewables. They are not synonymous. Grids need to be upgraded and expanded with or without new renewable generation. Provinces like Alberta are opting for new fossil gas generation and stifling renewables. Ontario is investing more in new nuclear and fossil gas than in renewables.
Worldwide, people are still choosing ICE cars over EVs by a wide margin.
Clean technologies vs. fossil fuels is not an apples-to-apples comparison.
If we include EVs in the clean technology category, we should include ICE cars in the fossil fuel category.
If we include heat pumps in the clean technology category, we should include gas furnaces in the fossil fuel category.
Electrical grids are agnostic when it comes to power generation, accommodating coal- and gas-powered power plants as well as renewables.
Nuclear power may or may not be "clean", but it is at best an adjunct to renewables, and at worst a rival.
Correction: The nuclear generation curve is nearly flat (4% higher) since 2000. Nuclear market share has nearly halved in that interval.
"From 2000 to 2022, nuclear's share of the global electricity generation mix nearly halved, declining from around 17% in 2000 to 9.2% in 2022 (Ember).
"In terms of absolute electricity generation, nuclear output has expanded since 2000, but only by around 4% to 2,632 TWh.
"That growth pace trails all other major sources of electricity generation during that period ... "
"Taking stock of global nuclear output and potential" (Reuters, Dec 13, 2023)
The IEA graph shows two investment columns, fossil fuel and non-fossil fuel. Technically they should have divided the fossil column into coal, gas, oil, distribution pipelines, refineries, pumping stations, etc. Or they could have simplified the non-fossil column into one solid colour representing the electrical distribution systems, batteries, PV, wind, geothermal, etc. Nonetheless, there are only two columns.
One graph that follows shows the phenomenal rise of solar PV. It is greater than all other power generating systems combined.
It is certainly not a " false narrative" to assume an investment in a renewable power system is just that, a system. Source, modification (AC-DC, transformers, inverters...), storage, distribution and load are all part of the same system and investment package.
To parse an energy system into its separate components, then eliminate everything but the source generation is like saying the Trans Mountain pipeline can't be counted as an investment in fossil fuels. It's not a well or a mine, it's a distribution component.
In the same light a set of train tracks is part of a railway system, even though it's not the train.
When I invest in residential solar my money includes the entire system, not just the rooftop panels. When an offshore wind farm is funded then built in the North Sea the investment calculation cannot stop at the turbine. It MUST include the undersea power cable, an onshore grid scale battery pack and distribution conductors connected to the Scottish grid.
When HVDC transmission conductors are built specifically distribute renewable clean electricity long distances, just because technically they could also carry power from filthy coal plants doesn't mean they will, especially as we see coal and gas peaker plants being shut down for not just being high emitters, but for being uneconomical, especially in the face of cheap solar. Moreover, HVDC does not pertain to regional short distance HVAC where gas and coal are placed closer to the load because AC line resistance is high.
I'm on my phone remotely so I can't pop back to the IEA page immediately. But if they included CCUS in the renewables column they obviously made a mistake. Having said that, I would include ANY investment that directly reduces or eliminates burning fossil fuels, even home insulation, electric heat pumps on a clean grid, triple glazing and so on. Perhaps there should be a third column for investments in energy effiency and electrification of the built environment
Okay. The latest info I have is that the US refineries are now talking about weaning themselves off of Canadian heavy oil. The catalyst is, of course, Trump's tariffs. This requires a rapid build out of light oil refineries, or a retooling of heavy oil refineries to accept light sweet crude. If they can gather up the massive funding and source steel (not tariffed Canadian steel) and secure permits and adequate labour forces, then the resulting reduction in Alberta diluted bitumen flowing south could start to manifest itself in as little as 4 or 5 years.
That will force Canada into managing a steep decline in its exported oil demand. Will we go green or build Energy East?
My guess is that it's easier, cgeaoer and quicker to build HVDC transmission corridors than pipes.
Seth may be ambivalent to carbon taxes, but he's all-in on a youth climate corps. I appreciate enthusiasm -- and actually believe that "gap year" or "early career" programs may be a great idea -- but it remains a mystery to me how unskilled youth will take on roles that ostensibly require a priori skills.
The Vancouver corps, for example, appears to position itself as a supplier of energy auditors, however their youth placements are short-term (4-6 months). Are these folks certified as NRCan energy advisors? Or, will it be another "student summer painter" gig?
https://www.youthclimatecorps.com/yccmap/vancouver
https://www.youthclimatecorps.com/about
https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-efficiency/home-energy-effic…
If we are to retrofit millions of existing structures to reduce energy demand -- we certainly need to -- we will need a great many additional professional tradespeople. Will a climate corps be suitable as (pre-)apprenticeship training and will the individuals be accepted by the journeyfolk they would be working beside?
I want to see a strategy to raise the bar on building energy performance and urban building & landscape design -- in the code and in retrofits -- and then determine where youth could successfully be placed for maximum benefit.
Seth's skepticism regarding non-mandatory aspirations is fully warranted, in my view. This apparent focus on "no regulation", additionally, makes more urgent my concerns about where Mr. Carney positions himself on the economic continuum.
First, as a tactical alternative to Mr. Poilievre, I'm fully behind him. Strategically, however -- where would he lead the country? -- I am not yet convinced. Specifically, is he a neoliberal "Davos Man"**, or is he prepared to regulate, demonopolize, tax progressively and enforce the primacy of democratic, elected governance? I have yet to glean anything that would begin to answer that question. And it is a very important one.
Does anyone have any evidence, one way or the other?
** https://www.harpercollins.com/products/davos-man-peter-s-goodman?varian…
It truly doesn't matter.
Under the current circumstances, his European connections may be the most important.
A pamphlet that just arrived in my mailbox from my Liberal member of parliament claims “Canada’s climate plan is among the best in the world”.
Judging by results, Canada’s is among the worst, not the best. In an article in the National Observer last November, Barry Saxifrage documents the emissions of all the European and G7 countries. Canada’s emissions are 16% higher than in 1990. All the others are lower, except Cyprus. The European average is 36% lower. For six countries, including the UK, the emissions are less than half they were in 1990.
In that article we find that Canada’s per capita emissions are three times larger than the global average, whereas the EU’s emissions are close to the global average.
Canada has about the worst emissions. We need to do much much better.
David Huntley
Professor Emeritus,
Physics, SFU.
I really don't think semi-elitist language and tech talk are very important to this discussion at present. Content is supremely important. This is not about language coaching and personality. It's about having the chops to address multiple crises, but with a well thought out plan.
'"Carney Energy Ideas Underwhelming"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUfoe8k6UIQ
Energi Media is an excellent site based in BC but that covers energy issues in Canada and across the world. It could really use a much larger viewshed. Today they posted the above linked video providing context and analysis on Mark Carney's published platform so far. It concludes his platform is not adequate and results in disappointment, but it's far better than anyone else's at present.
Mark Carney and the LPC, please pay attention.
Markham Hislop and EM's staff had some very astute observations about the need of a Strategic Plan. Despite his acknowledgement of the importance of planning, Carney hasn't really come up with one yet, just a mix of ideas (some of them bang on, others not feasible or entirely relevant) and, like all the other leaders, is casting about without enough focus. It's not clear if anyone here understands what else may evolve out of the US that slams our economy.
Some background. The EU entered a crisis period when Russia started throttling down and shutting down their oil and gas supplies, basically weaponizing the fossil energy that the EU became so dependent on. The EU then struck an emergency planning group and came up with their Strategic Plan:
1) Short term replacement
2) Electrification + renewables and rapid expansion of same
3) Efficiency investments
This plan put the EU back on its feet and emissions are falling as the result. Wind, solar, batteries and efficiency (transportation, buildings ....) are incrementally replacing the imported LNG that in turn replaced Russian gas. The EU economy took a big hit but is still standing and is in relatively good health.
One shocker: A Midwest US refinery owner is now looking at rapid retooling to replace Canadian heavy oil with their own light crude. It may take a few years, but it's certainly on the table no matter how much Alberta objects. Moreover, Trump's tariffs won't just add costs to US consumers, but will motivate all refiners to do the same if Canada places export tariffs on its bitumen to match Trump's 25% on everything else. In addition, Canada also imports US oil, mainly on the East Coast and is vulnerable to supply disruptions and retaliatory US export tariffs.
Canadian oil and gas is likely in serious trouble should this Trumpian crisis continue, and that will force the fossil fuel industry to face the possibility that it may meet its demise in a few years. Full stop.
Hislop says it's time for Canada to "stop writing blank cheques" for more pipelines and fossil fuel infrastructure, and focus on where the world outside of North America is heading -- renewables and electrification. Carney does say that, but it's mixed in with stupid ideas like hydrogen and CCUS, and he seems to be a little more open to the narrative about more pipelines. Carney also studiously avoids mention of direct government investment and waxes on about private investment. That may work as long as there are solid, enforceable standards in place.
If the US really starts to reduce its Canadian oil imports over the next 3-8 years, there is no way that Canada should invest in stranded assets. Hislop reiterates the estimated peak in world oil demand is in or about 2030, which is motivation enough. But Trump now lit a fire under the issue.
The EU developed a strategic plan to incrementally replace carbon with clean electrons in its economy. Canada and Mark Carney don't have to reinvent the wheel. Just look at what another continent was forced into, and adapt it to Canadian conditions, and move very, very quickly in all three steps of the EU Strategic Plan.
Alberta may never come out of the Trump effect without a slow motion major knock out punch.
In his book “The Carbon Tax Question” Tom Pedersen lays the blame squarely on the Federal Government for the fact that most people do not know that they are getting rebates. Here is my example:
A friend printed her government “Statement of account”. Underneath that heading there is “GST/HST credit transactions”. The first item listed is
“BCCAC ENT CR for ISS” and $34.31 under “$ amount credited”.
The next line, with the same date, reads $34.31 under “$ amount debited” and beside “Amt deposited to your bank account”.
How many things can you count amiss here?
1) What is BCCAC ENT CR for ISS? There is no explanation.
2) the BCCAC stands for the BC climate action tax credit. It has nothing to do with the heading of “GST/HST credit transactions”
3) what is ENT CR for ISS? There is no explanation. I have no idea.
4) it looks as though the government is first giving $34.31 and then in the next line taking it away.
5) actually that second entry is apparently both being debited and deposited in her bank account. This is very confusing.
There are more entries like this one, then further down on the page there is “Transfer from the BCCAC account” “$200.10.” Which raises more questions such as what account?
I can only assume that the people in Ottawa that designed this form are opposed to the carbon tax and do not want Canadians to know about the rebates that are deposited in their bank accounts. Will Mr. Carney do better?
Carney said he will eliminate the consumer portion of the CT but keep the tax on industrial polluters and use the revenue to subsidize consumer's energy efficiency upgrades and replacement of gas and oil with electrical equipment.
Carney's take does not explain whether he would use direct public funding for said upgrades and clean energy projects, or attempt to avoid them altogether and harness only private investment and revenue from an industrial "carbon market."
Carney mentioned using public private partnerships (P3s) in a national policy to build low and zero carbon infrastructure. Well, though this is much better than the alternativewe (Build Baby Build vs Drill Baby Drill), we really need more detail.
In my years as a project manager I've developed a healthy skepticism about P3s. They have mixed results; their success depends on how much control a private contractor consortium or operator has over the project and asset.
The most balanced results (private profits vs public service standards) comes when the public owner (government at any level) has direct control over ownership, funding, design, construction and operations, but hires experienced private professional consultants to design and tender a project, and to manage construction under a contract. In every step the private sector answers to the government project managers. Operating the system (e.g. rapid transit lines) can also be contracted to professional management companies as long as the public agency owner specifies the required minimum standards of operating management.
"Design build" is, in my view, the second least desireable project building model. It gives the majority of control to the private consortium. There are too many cases of inadequate design and spatial programming out there in public projects that fall short in the end. Not enough elevators or escalators, transit trains and station platforms that are too small and reach capacity too early, rooms that fall short of standard programming requirements, not enough washrooms or storage, cheap materials and equipment that breaks down too quickly, and so forth.
The absolute worst P3 is where the government hands a public asset over to a private entity who then has an equity stake in everything, from ownership rights through design, construction and long term operations. A P3 essentially becomes a P1 in this case. The US private healthcare system or privatised municipal water systems are large-scale examples of this.
Mark Carney wants to harness private money to build big things. He now needs to state categorically that the public will have control set to high standards over public assets. 100% public ownership is also key.
If a Carney government builds a high speed rail line between Toronto and Quebec City and strikes an agreement with Siemens, Alstom or Hitachi to design and build the line, then the government must own the land and railbed and have total control over the entire process, including setting hugh design and operating standards. VIA Rail should always be in the driver's cab.