Regina’s P3 referendum: A vote hijacked by a war of numbers from nowhere

Public Private Partnerships (P3a) are relatively recent innovations in the public infrastructure development space in Canada. This paper explores the strange circumstances surrounding a referendum held in Regina Saskatchewan, on City Hall’s prior decision to pursue a P3 model of building, financing and operating a municipal infrastructure project. What started off as an instance of vibrant public engagement, ultimately forcing the referendum, turned into a war of numbers from nowhere; a contest between numbers without verifiable origins due to the practice of shielding P3 calculative technologies. Using Actor-Network Theory we focus on the enlistment by P3 proponents of numbers from the Value for Money chart contained in a report produced by experts, Deloitte, for the City. The expert calculations supporting these numbers were severely redacted in reports released to the public. Despite the lack of verifiable substance these numbers were enlisted by P3 proponents and came to speak volumes during the referendum, effectively drowning out all other discourse. This was aided by the public option proponents who challenged those numbers and added similarly unverifiable numbers of their own, turning the referendum into a war of expert-produced numbers without substance, reducing the referendum question to “Whose numbers do you trust?” More information: http://www.uregina.ca/business/events/2015/03/research-presentation.html

More information at: http://www.uregina.ca/events/reginas-p3-referendum-a-vote-hijacked-by-a-war-of-numbers-from-nowhere