February 7, 2000
Submission to the:
Ontario Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs
Len Hupet
First Vice-President/Treasurer
Ontario Public Service Employees Union
Good morning/afternoon.
My name is Len Hupet. For over 30 years, I have been a
Correctional Officer at the Fort Frances Jail. Right now I am on leave from that job and
serving my second term as the First Vice-President/Treasurer of the Ontario Public Service
Employees Union.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to address these
hearings. And welcome to the North.
I am here today to bring my union’s perspective to the
provincial budget. Since 1995, OPSEU members have found themselves directly in the path of
the Conservative steamroller.
Since 1995, we have seen over 25,000 members lose their
jobs, not only in the Ontario Public Service, but also in our community colleges. We have
seen dedicated workers in health care and social services agencies struggle to serve their
clients in the face of ongoing budget reductions.
We are among those who have paid a heavy price for the
Common Sense Revolution. We believe we have a particular understanding of what this
government’s policies have done to Ontario. We believe we have a unique perspective.
We know what it means when a government deliberately
chooses to destroy public services.
I want to talk about two main things here today.
First, our ongoing concern with the general fiscal
direction of this government. And second, the impact of this direction on our members,
their work, and their communities.
As everyone knows, this government decided a long time ago
that tax cuts were more important than any other policy goal. More important than public
services. More important even than deficit reduction, which Conservatives normally put a
premium on.
This single-minded focus on tax cuts is about one thing,
and one thing only: to change the way the wealth of this great province is distributed.
In the north, we are used to seeing our resources shipped
away to make other regions better off. Under this government, the same thing is happening,
but it’s not just a transfer of wealth from poor regions to rich regions –
it’s a transfer of wealth from poor people to rich people.
Of course, the government doesn’t want to just come
right out and say that cutting taxes and chopping public services are moving money from
the poor to the rich. So they make up reasons.
They say that we have to cut taxes to compete globally.
They talk about a "brain drain." They talk about tax cuts as if they put more
money into everybody’s pockets. They talk as if tax cuts are actually making Ontario
a better place to live.
They are not. You just have to read the headlines:
emergency room tragedies, environmental disasters, homelessness in Toronto, deteriorating
roads in the north, and students who can no longer afford a higher education.
In the middle of these serious problems, the Government
always tries to put the blame on others – the federal government, poor people, the
union movement, and its own employees.
At some point, the government must take responsibility for
its actions.
According to the Alternative Provincial Budget, the Tory
tax cuts will double the provincial debt – an additional $80 Billion since 1995. So
much for being conservative!
Driving us into debt, slashing public services, and cutting
taxes all have the same effect.
Debts give future governments an excuse to cut public
services.
Tax cuts give the current government an excuse to cut
public services.
When public services are slashed, they deteriorate. This
causes people to lose faith in government.
Unlike the Bill Davis’ Conservatives, good government
is not this Government’s goal. Their goal is no government.
With no government, the playing field will be wide open for
private corporations to run everything. And when corporations run everything, democracy
means nothing.
This is the direction the Harris government is driving us.
They never say that, of course. They say tax cuts actually
increase government revenues.
If this were true – and it’s not – the best
way to increase government revenues would be to give all our money away.
Well, the real world doesn’t work that way.
A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy
Alternatives compared British Columbia and Alberta between 1993 and 1997. British Columbia
faced slower growth in the economy and introduced few tax cuts. Alberta had a faster rate
of economic growth and introduced deep and extensive tax cuts.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that British
Columbia had a faster rate of revenue growth. It’s common sense.
Yes, revenues are growing in Ontario. But not because of
tax cuts.
Since the Harris government came to power, the U.S. economy
has been booming. The federal government has maintained a policy of low interest rates.
These two things are driving the current economic boom.
But a very sad thing is happening. At one time, an economic
boom was good for everyone. They used to say that "a rising tide lifts all
boats."
This economic boom is different. While some get richer and
richer, others are getting poorer and poorer. And the destruction of public services only
helps those who can afford to buy their own.
In their hearts, Ontarians know this. In poll after poll,
the public ranks education, health care, the environment, and assistance to poor children,
to name a few, far ahead of tax cuts.
This isn’t that suprising given the actual,
pocket-book impact of the tax cuts.
As you have previously heard, the Centre for Social Justice
has recently released new figures from Statistics Canada tracking the income of families
raising children under 18. The Centre compares the years 1994 - the last full year of the
NDP Government - to 1997 - the most recent year for which statistics are available.
During those four years, the disparity in income earned in
the marketplace between the richest 10% of the population and the poorest 10% of the
population actually dropped between 1994 and 1997. The gap fell by over 70%.
Amazingly, however, after this government’s
intervention in the market (through tax cuts for the wealthy, transfer cuts to average
Ontarians, and new user fees), the gap between richest and poorest actually increased from
six times after-tax and after-transfer income to almost eight times.
The political choices of this government have ensured that
our society is even more divided than ever.
The Impact on Public Services and OPSEU Members
I want to talk now about the impact of public service cuts.
Public services have always been the backbone of our
northern life. Publicly-maintained highways have moved our resources to market. Government
regulation has, to some degree, made sure that our resources have helped build the
province, and not only line the pockets of corporate shareholders.
All of that is coming undone.
By laying off hundreds of resources technicians, this
government has given forest companies free rein over a resource that is supposed to belong
to us.
By laying off over 40 per cent of the staff in the Ministry
of Environment, they’ve given polluters a free ride through what they call
"self-regulation."
Asking private industry to do its own management of public
resources and cut pollution voluntarily is exactly the same as expecting speeders to turn
themselves in at the next OPP detachment.
It just doesn’t happen.
What’s happening to our northern highways is even more
obvious.
This winter, people across the north are asking,
"What’s gone wrong with highway maintenance?"
Well, for starters, it’s not as good as it used to be.
There’s less salt. Less sand. Less plowing.
That means more dangerous roads. It may mean more highway
deaths. In communities like Schreiber, Neebing, Temagami, Latchford, and Ottawa, municipal
councillors are wondering if poor maintenance is causing highway deaths.
If it is, there is a good chance that privatization is to
blame.
Starting in 1996, the government launched an ambitious plan
to privatize highway maintenance.
Their goal is to have all of it sold off to private
contractors by this spring.
The 1999 report of the provincial auditor did not slow them
down one bit.
This past November, the provincial auditor, Erik Peters,
wrote a scathing report on how the Ministry of Transportation had handled highway
privatization so far.
Here’s what he said: "The Ministry’s
procedures were not adequate to ensure that the outsourcing initiative was managed with
due regard for economy and efficiency nor to ensure compliance with legislation, policies,
and contract terms and conditions."
In other words, MTO did pretty much everything wrong.
First off, the report proves taxpayers didn't save money by
contracting out. What appears to matter to the government is not satisfying highway safety
and maintenance, but only satisfying its corporate friends.
The report noted the inadequate monitoring of safety
standards in privatized areas. The Auditor also saw selling off public highway equipment
and then listing the revenue as an attempt to "cook the books." He pointed to
evidence that the government had double counted certain budget items to make the work
performed by public employees look like it cost more.
The Auditor's Report confirms what OPSEU has said all along
about the privatizing roads: it's too expensive, and it's too dangerous. Public employees
do a better job because they don’t have the profit motive interfering with their
work.
When you privatize a service like road maintenance, the
motive is there for private operators to cut corners to increase their profits.
They might use less salt or sand, or they might lift their
plows off the pavement to save the blades. Whenever that happens, the public is put in
danger.
We cannot support that. That’s why OPSEU is working
now with northern mayors to call for an independent review of the whole highway
maintenance scheme.
We believe privatization is destroying our roads and
endangering our lives. We believe an independent review will prove it – once and for
all.
Despite the fact that privatization has been an all-out
disaster for Ontario’s highways, the government now wants to do the same damage to
another area that has a lot to do with public safety. That area is correctional services.
Right now, the government is planning to privatize one, and
likely two of the 1,200-bed "superjails" it is building in Penetanguishene and
Lindsay.
They plan to privatize the escort of prisoners when they
are taken into the community for medical appointments or when they are being transferred
between institutions.
They plan to privatize the maximum security facilities for
young offenders.
This is very dangerous.
People who live in communities with provincial jails
don’t think about them much. That’s how it should be.
Ontario jails have an excellent track record in keeping
inmates locked up and keeping communities safe.
The people who run Ontario jails are directly accountable
to Ministers of the Crown.
In addition, provincial jails provide decent-paying jobs
that support local economies.
These are the three things that our communities will lose
if private jails come to Ontario: safety, accountability, and economic benefits.
And don’t think it’s something that will just
happen down south. The Corrections Ministry has already completed its review of the
northern district. We don’t know what they’ve got planned, but we do expect
community jails to close and bigger jails to be built.
And if the government can get away with private jails in
the south, we will get private jails here.
By now, most people have heard the horror stories about
what has happened with prison privatization in the United States and overseas.
In 1997, the city of Youngstown, Ohio, invited the
Corrections Corporation of America to set up a private prison, with the promise of 450
jobs to be created.
The CCA prison held 1,700 inmates.
In the next 10 months, that prison had 13 stabbings. Two of
them were fatal.
All of the other prisons in Ohio, all publicly-run, had
only 12 assaults with deadly weapons during that period. No one died.
The public prisons in Ohio held 48,000 inmates.
In other words, the record of violence in Youngstown was 30
times as bad as it was in the rest of the system.
Peter Davis, director of the Ohio state corrections agency,
said: "There is nothing in Ohio’s history like the violence at that [private]
prison."
Now, maybe some people don’t care about what goes on
behind the locked gates of a jail. We do. Correctional staff do not want to die so some
foreign corporation can make money.
Then there’s the community aspect.
In Youngstown, six inmates broke through seven layers of
prison security. Five of the escapees were convicted murderers. When they escaped, the
prison held off on calling the police for several hours.
This is not an isolated case.
The two private prisons in New Mexico, run by Wackenhut
Corporation, had riots, nine stabbings, and five murders in just over a year. One of them
was a guard.
The man who died was named Ralph Garcia. He signed on at
the prison for $7.95 an hour. He had not completed his short training course, but he was
put in a cellblock with 60 unlocked prisoners.
Leaving Garcia alone was part of Wackenhut’s
cost-cutting policy.
The response from a Wackenhut executive was,
"We’d rather lose one officer than two."
In a public facility, you’ve got experienced,
professional staff who know how to keep things calm. You’ve got managers who are
accountable to citizens.
A corporation is accountable to its shareholders. It is not
accountable to local citizens.
Private corporations exist only to make money. In private
prisons, they do this by cutting costs. And that means jeopardizing safety.
We’ve already seen this in Ontario, at the
government’s private "boot camp" for Young Offenders.
Camp Turnaround is a facility for offenders aged 16 and 17.
It opened in August, 1997, near Orillia.
We don’t know exactly what’s going on inside Camp
Turnaround right now. As a private facility, it’s not open to scrutiny the way a
public facility is.
The public can’t even get a copy of the
Ministry’s report on the escape that happened there.
The escape happened on the day of the Grand Opening. The
Minister went up there to do a big media event. The kids did one instead.
Two of the inmates broke out of their rooms, hot-wired a
van, and crashed it through the gates.
Fortunately for police, the breakout damaged the radiator,
and the van broke down not far down the road. The inmates took off into the bush and were
not captured for several hours.
After that, real correctional officers – from the
public service – were called in to secure the facility. Taxpayers paid for that.
Taxpayers also paid $380,000 for security improvements at the facility.
There was a public meeting held near Camp Turnaround a few
months after the escape.
One of the local citizens posed a hypothetical question to
Ministry officials. He asked what would happen if the escaped inmates had crashed the van
into his wife and children and killed them. He wanted to know who he would be suing.
Corrections Minister Bob Runciman couldn’t answer the
question. Finally, a Ministry spokesperson said, "That would be up to the
courts."
Of course, that’s not true. In reality, he would be
suing the company and the government. The government cannot escape liability
by contracting out – it just loses control. Taxpayers are always on the hook
for extra costs, but the company’s profits continue.
The history with private prisons is that the public is
always the last to know what is going on.
Finally, there is the money issue. Governments who push
private prisons always say that they will save money and create jobs at the same time.
Neither is true.
According to the most comprehensive report, done by the
General Accounting Office of the U.S. Congress, there is no evidence that private jails
are cheaper than comparable public jails.
There is also no evidence that a private jail puts more
money into the local economy than a public jail.
The reason is simple.
To make a profit, the company must take money
out of the service, and out of the community, to ship back to the corporate head office.
Taking money out of the service means taking it out of
payroll.
On March 1, 1999, the Ontario government privatized Arrell
Youth Centre, a secure-custody facility for young offenders in Hamilton.
The first effect of this was that the facility lost almost
all of its experienced correctional staff.
Of those working at the facility before privatization, only
five employees remained after. The Correctional Officer salary for new hires dropped from
$44,500 to between $31,168 and $34,058.
At the same time that salaries were being cut by over
$10,000, the government gave the private operator an extra $300,000 a year to run the
operation. The budget went from an existing $2.2 million to $2.5 million a year.
Privatization did not save money. It cost
more. On top of that, it cost the public the services of experienced professionals.
Deregulation of resource management, and privatization of
highways and jails, are not being driven by common sense. Not at all. They being driven by
a government that has set itself one goal: to move wealth and power from democratic
citizens to corporate shareholders.
On behalf of my union, I’m here to say that this is
not the direction Ontario should be going.
I would like to ask each and every one of you on this
committee to take a hard look at what is happening. And when you get back to Queen’s
Park, please fight for an Ontario that is for all of us, not just the lucky, Conservative
few.
Thank you very much. I’d be pleased to answer any
questions you might have.
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