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"At first glance, having a charity provide formal community services may seem harmless. But there are significant problems with this form of privatization, and it's the people who depend on the services that ultimately pay the price for those problems," says NUPGE National President James Clancy.
Ottawa (26 Nov. 2015) — The scheme to replace professional Ministry of Health workers with off-the-street volunteers has earned British Columbia's Liberal government the second annual Privatization Scam of the Year Award, a.k.a. "The Scammie."
"We've been warning Canadians to be on the lookout for new forms of privatization, and this is a perfect example," says James Clancy, National President of the National Union of Public and General Employees.
"At first glance, having a charity provide formal community services may seem harmless," says Clancy. "But there are significant problems with this form of privatization, and it's the people who depend on the services who ultimately pay the price."
Volunteers lead to low-quality services
By online vote, the B.C. Liberals won the 2014 Scammie for privatizing home care services to the United Way. Even though the United Way was given a budget to provide those services, it was so low that the charity turned to volunteers and low-wage contractors to do much of the work, leading to lay-offs and inconsistent care.
Perhaps even worse, privatizations like this could leave the door open to for-profit companies hoping to take over the service when the United Way's contract expires —something that is now happening to services in the U.K. and Australia that were originally privatized to non-profits.
"No two ways about it, this is a scam"
"You can be sure that the private sector in British Columbia is going to want to bid on those home care services when the United Way's term is up," says Clancy. "There are no two ways about it, this is a scam and it's deserving of the Scam of the Year Award."
The B.C. home care privatization was just one of five nominees for the 2014 Scammie. Also in contention were
- the skyrocketing use of private consultants in Saskatchewan (at twice the price of public sector workers);
- the hiring in New Brunswick of a hospital food service multinational that is embroiled in a horse-meat scandal in Europe;
- the privatized hospital in Montreal that has resulted in a number of international arrest warrants on charges of fraud and corruption.
The final nominee was Ontario's Liberal government for its rampant use of privatization to build and finance infrastructure province.
Honourable mention for Ontario
Although it didn't earn as many votes as the B.C. home care privatization, the judges awarded it an honourable mention because the Ontario Attorney General recently concluded that the privatized infrastructure cost $8.2 billion more than if it had been built by the public sector.
"Over eight billion dollars," says Clancy. "The Ontario Liberals could have done tremendous good with that money. Instead, they gave it to the wealthy. That's a scam of huge proportions and well worth a 'dishonourable' mention."
More information:
Privatization Scam of the Year Award
NUPGE
The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 360,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE