Myths about the process

Today I had the pleasure of appearing on CFRA as one of the candidates running in the upcoming municipal election and I was asked about the Lansdowne Partnership plan. When I said that I considered Council's decision to proceed was unwise, I was asked to elaborate.
I commented that there are two essential steps in considering a public/private partnership.
The first is to calculate what the project would cost if done as a purely public undertaking. The second step is to solicit bids for alternative approaches from private sector partners. I said that neither of these steps had been accomplished in Ottawa's involvement in Lansdowne.
I was challenged with an assertion that a costing for a public undertaking had been prepared. My retort was that I did not consider that anything approaching a satisfactory examination of the cost of a public project had been done. I continue to believe that is the case and would invite anyone out in the blogosphere who believes this basic first step was done to correct me.