Public Values

CBC slaughterhouse story triggers union demands for better food safety

Dec 212012

Puratone supplies pig products to stores including Loblaws.

Public Service Alliance of Canada calls for a thousand more food inspectors.

by SGNews Staff

Public Service Alliance of Canada members visited the Real Canadian Superstore on Richmond Road recently to demand a commitment to higher standards of food safety.

A sober second look at liquor store privatization

Dec 212012

Public Values

Ontario's Progressive Conservatives want to privatize the province's liquor stores.

Free market approach can't deal with alcohol abuse.

from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

A story in the Winnipeg Free Press’s The View from the West (Dec.10, 2012 – Private Ontario liquor stores will benefit consumers) brings the issue of privatizing liquor sales to readers’ attention. Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives plan on privatizing retail liquor sales in Ontario should they take power, and the author is all in favour. He points to the “empirical evidence collected over 20 years in Alberta” and the contention that publically controlling liquor sales is “contrary to economic freedom.”

Manitoba privatizes property registry

Dec 212012

Public services

Job losses and fee hikes are expected.

by SGNews Staff

Toronto-based Teranet will be taking over the Manitoba's profitable property registry service, the Manitoba government announced recently . The announcement prompted concern by the Manitoba Government Employees Union that the privatization will result in significant job loss and fee increases for Manitobans.

Public Service Alliance of Canada holiday food drive continues

Dec 212012

Public Values

PSAC is collecting food for needy Ottawa families.

Union members go door-to-door for families in need.

frofrffroomkklfrjdjdjfrom Public Service Alliance of Canada

Members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada (National Capitol Region) are out in force collecting food for Ottawa families in need. Union members went door-to-door and were at grocery stores encouraging shoppers to donate to the food bank.

Florida court strikes down prison privatization again

Dec 202012

Health

Lawmakers can't delegate the job, says judge.

from the Miami Herald

For the second time in over a year, a state judge has ruled that the Florida Legislature violated the law when it tried to privatize the state’s role in operating prisons.

Leon County Circuit Court Judge John Cooper on Tuesday struck down an attempt by the Florida Legislature to privatize prison health care by using a budgetary process instead of making the change through a full vote of lawmakers.

Pay-to-play recess programs on the rise at Ottawa schools

Dec 142012

Education

Private companies are offering a growing number of programs at Ottawa schools during recess or lunch hour.

"Stealth privatization" offers recess activities for parents who can pay.

from the Ottawa Citizen

When Dayna Scott’s six-year-old son came home from Hopewell Avenue Public School with a pamphlet about a new phys-ed program at recess, it sounded like a good idea. Rohan is a little fireball, and loves sports of all kinds. The “Active Start recess program,” the pamphlet promised, helps children six to nine develop the general skills they need to move into any sport.

Wave of P3 promotion misses the point

Dec 142012

Public Values

Forensic accountant Ron Parks found the P3 model was 130 per cent more expensive in building Vancouver General Hospital's Diamond Centre.

P3s are more expensive.

by Barry O’Neill

Did we miss the proclamation of “P3 Week” in British Columbia? Earlier this week, the Sun ran three op-ed pieces in two days, all lauding the supposed virtues of “public private partnerships (P3s).”

The three op-eds had a couple of things in common. First, they were written by people with a bias in favour of P3s. Two were written by law firms that make big money from P3s. The last was written by the head of a health authority which has had P3s foisted on it by the provincial government.

Ontario: Partisans on both sides claim teachers don’t understand issues

Dec 142012

Education

Teachers are furious about Bill 115, not misled by their leaders.

from The Little Education Report

Recent statements by Minister of Education Laurel Broten and PC Leader Tim Hudak follow the hackneyed old saw, “those nice classroom teachers that you all like are being seriously misled by radical union leaders like Sam Hammond (ETFO) and Ken Coran (OSSTF).” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Worried about the deficit?

Dec 142012

Public Values

The study by "Alltogethernow" found Canada is in the best fiscal position of all the richest countries in the world.

Worry about tax fairness instead.

by SGNews Staff

For decades, Canadians have been hearing that government spending and the deficit must be reigned in. A recent study produced by "allltogethernow", a campaign run by the National Union of Provincial Government Employees, invites Canadians to look at the facts.

Total government spending in Canada has dropped dramatically in the last 16 years. In 2002, total government spending in Canada as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 53 per cent. In 2008 it was 39 per cent — the third lowest of the G7 countries, and the 11th lowest of the 30-member Organzation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The deficit? Canada is in the best fiscal position of the richest countries in the world. In the G7, Canada has the lowest government debt. According to the Internation Monetary Fund, our deficit is 32 per cent, compared to 142 per cent for Japan, 91 per cent for the United Kingdon and 83 per cent for the United States.

Our total debt is less than half (32 per cent of GDP) of what it was under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney (70 per cent).

The real problem, according to NUPGE, is a revenue problem — a drop of three per cent in government spending, from 36 per cent in 1995 to 33 per cent in 2008. That translates to a loss of about $50 billion in revenue that could have been spent on public services.

The drop in revenue can be traced to policies that upped the tax rate for lower income Canadians and dropped it for the wealthiest. The richest one per cent now have a lower total tax rate than that of the poorest 10 per cent.

The article refers to corporate tax rates as a "race to the bottom." Canada has the lowest corporate tax rates in the G7 — lower than those of the US by about 15 per cent.

Spaniards protest health care privatization plans

Dec 142012

Health

Medical workers say savings possible without selling off services.

from thestar.com

MADRID, December 12, 2012,(AP) — Thousands of Spanish medical workers and residents angered by budget cuts and plans to partly privatize the cherished national health service marched through some of Madrid’s most famous squares on Sunday.

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