RC120 SeptOct 2025 - Magazine - Page 23
SEAN MORLEY: As I said earlier, I think we
already have a model that’s working well in
the healthcare sector that we should look to,
to borrow from to advance the construction
of long-term care facilities and that is the
P3 model, and you can look at it as either
the traditional P3 model that’s been in the
market for many years or the more recent
and evolving progressive design-build model. You have to be careful about how that
model gets brought over into the long-term
care space because I think there are some
problems that the traditional P3 model was
designed to solve in the public sector space
that maybe are not problems that need to be
solved in the long-term care facility space,
so you have to be careful about what parts
of the model that you import. The basis of
the traditional P3 model—was shifting risk
to the party that can best bear it in order to
have schedule certainty, price certainty, and
demonstrate value for money for taxpayers.
The equation in the long-term care space is
perhaps a little bit di昀昀erent because ownership at the end of the day of the asset
generally doesn’t rest with the public. So I
think I would focus on what are the barri-
ers to getting construction done quickly?
And my hypothesis would be that that lies
in reducing regulatory hurdles relating to
permitting approvals. And then second, in
terms of ensuring operational e昀케ciency or
perhaps more importantly that the public
policy objective goals that are articulated by
government, that they’re clearly articulated
and that they’re capable of being measured.
MELISSA DI MARCO: The sweet spot is really it’s
leaning into performance-based oversight.
So instead of having the public micromanage design details, governments should
focus on the outcomes: What is the quality
of the care? What are the safety standards
necessary to allow for these facilities to
work better? When it comes to construction
timelines for example, let the private partner
innovate around how to get there, so we get
there in terms of building some of these assets
quickly. The private partner has the capacity,
and this is where we put the risk in the right
location. The most critical hurdles are inconsistent approvals associated with health and
infrastructure regulations and long waiting
times for licensing. Getting out of the way in
terms of approval authority can fast-track the
procurement and design review process and
give the private sector the chance to innovate
on how to get there quickly because there is
a need, it’s coming quickly, and government
doesn’t have the solution only on their own
and neither does the private side for that
matter.
RALPH DESANDO: We’ve been able to build 昀椀ve
projects in under 24 months from start to 昀椀nish
and have three more projects in the ground
today that are larger than the other ones and
will be built and operational in 30 months all
as a result of the removal of regulatory barriers
by the Ontario government. And I consider
in many ways what we do to be a P3, maybe
not so much the traditional one that Sean
discussed, but we are a public-private partnership. We have successfully built eight that are
the standards of care that have been improved
because of those new homes. When it comes
to the e昀케ciency that Melissa talked about, I
totally agree. With the innovation that the private sector brings, coupled with the regulatory
standards that are being set and met, there is
value in that partnership.
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