Paying off a mortgage over x number of years on my personal home is accomplished my own after-tax money. Interest payments on home mortgages are not tax-deductible in Canada as they are elsewhere.

Expenditures on this stuff is mostly public money - borrowed and/or printed. I can't imagine how much total interest accrued over 30 years on that original $1.5 billion - money that could have better been spent elsewhere, or better yet, not at all...

TAM.