FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 2, 2006
OPSEU members to
join rally Saturday against Liberal private (P3) deals
TORONTO: The Ontario Public
Service Employees Union is joining with the Ontario Federation
of Labour and its other affiliates to demonstrate against the
so-called P3 schemes - the wildly expensive Liberal plan for
privately financed and operated hospitals and other public
services.
Dalton McGuinty promised that
any new hospitals would be fully public, and also that he
would cancel the two private deals signed by the previous
Conservative government. Instead, McGuinty has announced that
almost 30 new privately-funded hospitals will be built in a P3
(public-private-partnership) type arrangement. Other public
services are threatened as well.
“This is just another broken
Liberal promise – one that will cost the taxpayers billions
over the long term,” said OPSEU President Leah Casselman.
Hospitals built under similar
models in the United Kingdom have resulted in huge costs to
the public treasury, windfall corporate profits, layoffs of
health care workers, and a steep decline in the quality of
patient care. The P3 model has also been applied to other
public services in Britain – with equally disastrous results.
“We have a tried and true model
that works,” Casselman said. “It’s called publicly financed,
publicly run public services. Premier McGuinty has to listen
to the workers of Ontario and stop the sell-off of our public
services, now.”
The OFL-sponsored march will
arrive at Queen’s Park for a demonstration beginning at 1:00
p.m., Saturday June 3.
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For further information:
Rick Janson, OPSEU Campaigns
;
or David Cox, OPSEU Communications, Toronto (français):
1-800-268-7376
