RC104 JanFeb2023 - Magazine - Page 12
HEALTHCARE INFRASTRUCTURE
GOING TO MARKET
Infrastructure Ontario is delivering bigger and better hospitals
N 2019, THE GOVERNMENT OF ONTARIO announced one of the
biggest capital project pipelines, with 30 projects valued at $65 billion and a significant portion of that in
the healthcare space.
I
Not long after, as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped
the world, Michael Lindsay was appointed president
and CEO of Infrastructure Ontario (IO), the organization
charged with seeing these projects through to completion.
Having rejoined IO, a year earlier as president, project
delivery, Lindsay and the organization he leads has, in his
words, “been relentless in trying to bring these projects to
market.” In particular, “building out the capacity and the
resilience of Ontario’s healthcare system.”
And that has been accomplished in partnership with
industry.
“Working with talented design firms and good construction firms we’ve accomplished much while evolving
our approach to the way in which we think about the
delivery of these projects and dealing with the constraints
of the COVID-19 pandemic,” says Lindsay.
“I’m particularly proud of the fact that our organization
has managed to bring several hospitals online, during the
pandemic, such as the Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, the
first net new hospital in the province in decades.”
Lindsay also points to other hospital projects either in
procurement or under construction, such as Michael Garron Hospital and West Park Healthcare Centre in Toronto—set for completion in 2023—South Niagara Hospital,
West Lincoln Memorial Hospital, and the Weeneebayko
Area Health Authority redevelopment.
“We’re gratified and grateful that, notwithstanding
everything that we had to navigate with our partners and
with government, that we’ve managed to bring those projects either to realization, or to push them forward.”
John Tenpenny
is the editor of
ReNew Canada.
Good alignment
Infrastructure Ontario, says Lindsay, are big believers in
”As owners we continue to believe that in the right places
and spaces, securing outcomes against budget and cost
through the use of private financing makes a lot of sense.”
12 RENEW CANADA — JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2023
public-private partnership (P3) structures.
“They are one of the best ways to align the incentives
and designers, constructors, financiers, and those who
ultimately maintain hospitals over the long-term.
“As owners we continue to believe that in the right places and spaces, securing outcomes against budget and cost
through the use of private financing makes a lot of sense.”
The evolution of the P3 model has been necessary for a
variety of reasons, including the size of some of the hospital projects, that weren’t anticipated, says Lindsay.
Projects like the New Ottawa Civic Hospital and the
Trillium Health Partners Broader Redevelopment – The
Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital are “massive in their
total size, which is great,” he says.
“That is beds for regions that desperately need them,
but it means that these projects have their own risk profile
and that is somewhat different than when we used to, or
still do, put a greenfield hospital down somewhere in a
region outside of a major urban center.”
So, when he became Infrastructure Ontario CEO, Lindsay wanted to make sure that they were using the right
model to ultimately deliver these larger urban hospital
projects. And the adaptation, or evolution that they came
up with is what he describes as a progressive form of
Infrastructure Ontario’s DBF or DBFM models.
“So, what we do is get into a 12-to-18-month development agreement phase, with contractor involvement,
where we work together, effectively, to progress the design
of these hospitals and we use that as an opportunity to
talk about key risks and risk transfer inherent in the contract. And, at the end of 12 to 18 months we fix the price
for those works and we enter into a pretty well understood contract,” explains Lindsay.
Limited resources
Over the next five to 10 years, Lindsay sees some trends
and forces that will affect project procurement, such as
inflation and the availability of skilled labour and trades.
“We’re going to continue to face, alongside the rising
cost of things, sustained market capacity challenges in respect to the availability of labour and trades. And, I know
the Government of Ontario is consumed with this question, as most jurisdictions are, but there’s a limited amount
of people, ultimately, to build.”
Lindsay points to Eastern Ontario as an for example
where among other projects, Infrastructure Ontario cur-
RENEWCANADA.NET
PETER GILGAN: TRILLIUM HEALTH PARTNERS, LAKERIDGE GARDENS: LAKERIDGE HEALTH, MICHAEL LINDSAY: INFRASTRUCTURE ONTARIO
by John Tenpenny
