from the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions
The outsourcing of chemotherapy drugs without oversight is just the latest in a string of health privatization blunders with serious consequences for patients, says Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.
from Leftwords
Doug Allen's Leftwords blog notes that there has been little media commentary about the award to SNC-Lavelin of the $2.1 billion Ottawa light rapid transit project days after its former CEO was charged with the alleged transfer of millions of dollars to hospital officials in relation to a Quebec P3 contract. Last week SNC-Lavelin took a ten-year suspension from bidding on World Bank projects following allegations of bribery in Bangladesh. How likely is it that Ontario is immune?
from The Guardian
Andrew Simms and Stephen Kidd of the New Economics Foundation and the Tax Justice Network bust some myths about the canon of private sector efficiency in The Guardian. The actual data paints a very different picture, from increased subsidies to railways following privatization, to bankrupted private care homes. Of course, the bailout of the banks was the biggest bust of all.
from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
CUPE was at the United Nations in Geneva last week drawing international attention to the Harper Conservatives' efforts to privatize Canada's municipal water and wastewater systems and to the need for accessible, safe public water.
from the CBC
Health Canada is setting up a website to gather comments about whether a private company should be allowed to pay people for their plasma, according to CBC News. Doctors and some Canadians who became infected with hepatitis C from American tainted blood and plasma in the 1980s warn there are consequences to paying for blood products.
from the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees
“The $90 million dollar announcement is tangible proof that government had at its disposal the necessary funds to continue to provide essential public services.”
NAPE is reacting with outrage to the recent announcement that the provincial government is lending the Kruger Corner Brook paper mill $90 million.
from the Canadian Union of Public Employees
“Last year’s budget left tens of thousands on wait lists for long-term care beds, for child care, for affordable housing, for developmental services, for home care, and more than a million Ontarians living in poverty because of stagnant social assistance and mimimum wage rates,” he said.
Community groups and CUPE members symbolically queued up April 22 in front of Queen's Park. The queue mirrored the frustration of more than two million Ontarians who are waiting for government action on public services and poverty reduction, said CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn.
from Revolting Europe
The scathing criticism comes as auditors for the European Commission, the European Central Bank and IMF, known as the troika, arrive in Lisbon to see if the country can meet the requirements of rescue ten days after the constitutional court struck down several austerity measures.
The Council of Public Finances (CPF), a state body that assesses budgetary policies, today deplored the “blind cuts” to public spending, accusing the government of slashing state budgets “without any great discernment.”
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.
