CUPE: P3 Schools - A Mistake Alberta’s Government Keeps Making

EDMONTON, Alberta--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Alberta government has returned, again, to the failed approach of private-public partnership (P3) for the building and maintenance of schools in Alberta. The Government of Alberta announced in mid-July that seven elementary and junior high schools in Edmonton, Calgary, and Chestermere would be built using the controversial model.

Typically, a P3 model means the government contracts out the design, building, financing and maintenance of the building. While the government usually announces such P3s as a way to pay less for the construction, they often end up paying more in the long run because the deal means the government agrees to a form of rent over several decades.

P3s have led to accountability problems with the maintenance and upkeep of buildings. In some examples, schools did not have the ability to adjust thermostats and students and staff were sweating or shivering while the private company did not adjust the temperature. The model is chosen by governments who wish to keep deferred maintenance debt “off the books” and pushed to future budgets. But since governments pay far less for financing than private companies, it is rarely an overall cost savings to use a P3 model.

We have asked before, and must ask again, how many times can Alberta conservatives make the same mistake? The government has twice abandoned this model in the past, and many other provinces have found that P3s do not add up.

CUPE Alberta President Raj Uppal raised the alarm bells. “Given the length of these contracts — often 30 years or more — and the government’s regular flip-flopping on the use of P3s, it seems a poor choice to build much-needed schools this way. Public institutions should be the owners of public assets like schools, hospitals, and the like. We should not be renting back our own public buildings.”

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