If that sounds ambitious for an organisation hardly a year old, that's because McBride finds no shortage of opportunities for investment at the moment.
"The primary focus of PPPs in Canada to date has been the health sector, schools, correctional, police facilities and roads and bridges. That pipeline continues," he says. But it's also being broadened to additional sectors.
For example, one of the other winning bidders for round one of funding was a shared emergency radio system for the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. PPP Canada Fund committed up to $50 million toward the telecommunication project, which "isn't the normal brick-and-mortar sector people think of when they think of PPPs," says McBride.
And that's just the beginning. "We're seeing interest in the energy fled, renewable energy in particular. We're seeing interest in the rapid transit areas. We're seeing interest in the water and wastewater areas," he says. And the list goes on.
Moreover, it's not just provinces vying for the money. Among the 73 round two funding applicants were 35 municipalities and 13 Native Canadian communities. "We are seeing increased interest from those jurisdictions," says McBride. Their interest gives him great satisfaction because one of the things he'd like to accomplish in his time at PPP Canada is capacity-building for the PPP market, or building up PPP skills among governments that have yet to do their first projects.