from the Regina Leader-Post
Responding to recent commentary that public private partnerships are simply a tool for governments to consider, Tom Graham in The Regina Leader-Post disagrees. Taxpayers, he writes, not only pay more for private construction and operation of a P3, they also pay for the company's profits.
from Alternet
Pennsylvania citizens opposed to fracking are celebrating a precedent-setting judicial decision holding that there is no corporate right to privacy, according to a story published by Alternet and GlobalPossibilities.org. The decision will give journalists access to a confidential settlement where fracking corporations paid $750,000 to a family that claimed gas drilling had contaminated their water. Of even greater impact is the court's finding that corporate and business entities are not the same as people. "The plain meaning of 'people' is the living, breathing humans in this Commonwealth", states Judge O'Dell Seneca.
from Beat The Press
by Carl Jackers
American Livewire.com presents an interview with Nestlé CEO Peter Brabeck, for whom the fact that the global population is rising means that water should be privatized. Water as a human right is an "extreme view," says Brabek. Water should instead be regarded as a foodstuff with a price — as our "most important raw resource." Nothing, in Brabek's view, is more important than the continued profitablility of Nestlé.
The interview with Peter Brabeck
from the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union
Halifax (09 Nov. 2012) – The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union (NSGEU/NUPGE) is upset with the announcement by Premier Dexter about IBM Canada joining forces with the government, five universities and the Nova Scotia Community College supposedly to create hundreds of new jobs over the next eight years at the cost of contracting out a public service to the private sector.
from Global News Saskatoon
The Saskatchewan legislature resumes this week, and the Brad Wall government is set to introduce new legislation to privatize more Crown agencies and further attack the rights of organized labour.
"Labour, liquor stores and legislation will be on the agenda when the new session of the Saskatchewan legislature starts Thursday," writes Jennifer Graham of Canadian Press.
OTTAWA, ON, October 1, 2012: Tony Clement, President of the Treasury Board, and several other ministers made announcements across the country with regards to the Red Tape Reduction Commission.
Made up of corporations and lobby groups, this partisan commission is seeking to reduce regulatory compliance instead of focusing on keeping Canadians safe from harm.
Since the launch of this commission, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has warned that ensuring regulations that protect Canadians' health and safety are enforced override concerns about bureaucracy and red tape.
"The listeria food poisoning outbreak and the recent E. coli outbreak in Alberta are just some examples of the real and devastating impact deregulation can have on Canadian lives," said Robyn Benson, President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC).
TORONTO, ON, September 26, 2012: An announcement last week by the Ministry of Labour that it intends to strengthen the Employment Standards Act by hiring 18 additional enforcement officers was quietly followed days later by a decision to lay off 19 staff doing investigative work.
On September 17, the Ministry announced with considerable media fanfare that it was hiring the additional 18 officers in a bid to "protect" vulnerable workers from predatory employers who fail to meet minimum standards of wages, hours of work, paid holidays and other regulations under the Act.
Three days later, on September 20th, 19 employment standards officers, known as ESO1s, were told they were out of a job, victims of the McGuinty government's attack on public services as a weapon in its austerity agenda. Seventeen of the 19 officers have 20 or more years of service with the provincial government.
September 21, 2012: While Cowichan Valley kids are back at school, their democratically-elected school trustees aren't. District 79 is still being overseen by an appointed trustee after the province tossed the board out for submitting a needs-based budget in May.
The Cowichan Valley Board of School Trustees voted for a budget with a $3.7-million deficit, explaining its duty was to protect and restore services for students after years of government cuts. The board called for vital school services such as adequate hours of work for education assistants, custodial time, technology courses and bus service.
Groups including the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) and the BC Association of School Business Officials have identified this structural funding shortfall that has left many school districts squeezed to cut more and more services.
Under the BC School Act, boards are not permitted to run a deficit without ministry permission, despite the government's chronic underfunding of K-12. Then Minister of Education George Abbott fired the board and replaced it with an appointed administrator. Calls for a by-election to return to an elected board have been ignored by Abbott and his successor Don McRae.
newsletter for the Friends of Lansdowne's Let's Get It Right email list
OTTAWA, ON, September 24, 2012: One of the better features of the Lansdowne Partnership Plan is a 7-acre urban park facing the canal. However, it has just come to light that there can be no new buildings of any size in the park area — ever. There can be no public washroom buildings, no outdoor cafes and no kayak/bicycle rental pavilions. There can be tents and porta-potties, but no structures connected to the city's sewage system. So even though the park is intended to serve hundreds of thousands of visitors, and is part of a project costing taxpayers over $400 million, new amenities will be restricted to whatever is inside the Aberdeen Pavilion and the Horticulture Building. If these buildings happen to be closed, there will be no public washrooms in the park area and you will have to walk to the privately controlled stadium or shops just to wash your hands.
This surprising fact was revealed in a workshop organized by the Glebe Community Association with provincial Ministry of the Environment officials to discuss the risk management plan for Lansdowne. It turns out that because of the environmental controls needed to deal with contaminated soils in the designated parkland zone, any future construction is out of the question.
