Canada’s auditor general has concluded the federal government did not make a well-supported decision in choosing a P3 option to replace the Champlain Bridge in Montreal.

From deciding on a P3 before it had done the necessary analysis, and then doing a value-for-money study later on that was biased towards a P3, Infrastructure Canada’s decision-making process was flawed, the auditor writes.

“If the Department had thoroughly analyzed the procurement models for the project, it would have found that the public-private partnership could be more expensive than a traditional model,” Michael Ferguson said in his May report.