| ||||||||||||
|
Health Care |
||||||
|
Speaking notes for Leah Casselman Press conference on OMERS investing in P3s Wednesday, July 23, 2003 One of the looming candidates for this obscene new form of privatization is the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Let’s remember that the chief aim of a private corporation is to make a good return for its shareholders. Now measure the idea of a P3 for a psychiatric and addiction service against the criteria on Industry Canada’s own website for considering P3 partnerships:
This fails. These services have been provided with government resources and expertise for years.
Fails again. Tell me how taking profits out of the service will increase quality.
Another failure. The government can act quickly if it wishes to. A P3 relationship takes a great deal of negotiation to establish in the first place.
An astounding failure. This is clearly lacking.
This fails on many counts. Competition? In a crucial health care service? I don’t want to touch this obvious race to the bottom to see who can provide the cheapest services to people with serious psychiatric or addiction problems.
There is, of course, the Canada Health Act which spells out Canada’s public health system. And there are the solid recommendations of the Romanow Report which caution us against moving in the direction of privatized medicine. Another failure.
An outstanding failure. How do you put a measuring stick or a dollar sign beside the kind of services we are talking about here? We’re talking about treatment for people with serious afflictions, not coffee and Timbits.
Get serious! Even if the Canada Health Act permitted user fees for essential medical treatment, do we want mental health to be a privilege of the wealthy? I sincerely hope not – although clearly there are people in high places who could do with a generous dose of reality therapy.
This one gets a conditional pass. Services and programs for people with psychiatric problems and addictions have changed mightily over the years –within the public system. There has been innovation in the past, and there will be more innovation in the future as we learn better ways of serving this community. Like virtually all aspects of public service, programs and services change as we learn how to do things better.
Failure again. The general track record on P3 arrangements in health care is not a good one. The experience in Britain is one of much higher costs and much worse service. I can’t give the existence of a track record a passing grade when that record is so universally bad.
Let’s look at that. The idea of bringing the four campuses of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health together would free up some real estate and open opportunities for economic development, but there is no reason that the profits from that exchange should go to the private sector. Anything of this magnitude has “opportunities for economic development”, or maybe call it greed and piracy. I’ll give them half a point on this criterion. So – of the federal government’s eleven criteria for considering a P3 – I’ll give this project at absolutely maximum a 1.5. A score of 1.5 out of 11 in anybody’s books is a failing grade. I hope the movers and shakers behind this idea are reading the federal government’s website. One bit of advice that website includes is the importance of an open and inclusive process that informs staff and stakeholders all the way through. And we haven’t seen much sign of THAT as yet. Before I go any further, I should warn you that what I am about to say includes strong language. I can barely believe that OMERS – the pension fund that covers most municipal workers in Ontario, including quite a number of my members – and the Canada Pension Plan – which affects all of us – are thinking of putting money into a P3. The idea of using workers’ money to invest in a P3 is truly iniquitous. It is wicked and a gross injustice. Working people have money deducted from their pay cheques – deferred earnings – to build a pension for their retirement years. The idea that this money – their money – would be used to destroy their jobs and their opportunity to retire in dignity is horrific. The fact that pension plan managers would even consider it is unconscionable, even evil. Pension managers have a fiduciary responsibility to their contributors. This means, in simple language, that they can’t screw around with the money. They have an obligation to work in the best interests of the plan members. If you want to understand perversion, think about this idea: A pension plan takes your money, invests it in a P3, which boots you out of your unionized job, then hires you back at 75 per cent of your previous pay, no benefits and NO pension plan. And they say they are doing this in your best interest! Now that is truly perverse. It is villainous, it is wicked, it is malicious, it is atrocious, it is foul, is it damnable, it is malevolent, it is unethical, it is reprehensible, it should be illegal, and it is just plain wrong. We will do everything we can to stop it. Trust me that this press conference is only the beginning. |
|||||
Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 100 Lesmill Rd. Toronto, ON M3B 3P8 (416) 443-8888 www.opseu.org |
|
|
Questions about technical content or comments on this site may be directed to the webmaster. |
|
News Pages | How to join OPSEU | Ontario Public Service | Broader Public Service | Community Colleges | Contact Us | Grievance Awards Database | Search | Francais |
