Time to close door on P3s
December 8, 2008
Provincial Auditor Jim McCarter says it
would have been cheaper for the government to build the William Osler
hospital in Brampton.
Surprise, surprise – we’ve been saying
that for years. But will government learn its lesson? Ontario Health
Minister David Caplan shows no sign of it.
The so-called public-private partnership
(P3) was initiated by the Harris Tory government, but the McGuinty Liberals
still have dozens of P3 hospital construction projects on the drawing board.
Then Ontario Health Minister Tony
(“two-tier”) Clement spent a lot of energy justifying the Osler deal. Turns
out it was all lies. The auditor says the Tories over-estimated what the
public costs would be by $634 million, and did not do any real assessment of what it would
cost for the private sector to build.
The result? The auditor found that the
new P3 hospital cost almost half a billion dollars more to design and build
than if it had been built in the traditional way through government.
Operating costs are also higher than comparable public hospitals.
The report indicates that this entire
pilot project was a sham from the beginning -- yet it is still being used to
justify private sector involvement in public projects.
Like Highway 407 and Skydome, the William
Osler Hospital will go down as one of those deals where taxpayers are left
holding the bag while the private sector turns a tidy profit.
In solidarity,
Warren (Smokey) Thomas
President
OPS Bargaining 2008
