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Government gets privatized
September 21, 2011 - 11:26am
It seems to be under the radar but the conservatives just hired a huge (somesay corrupt) corporation to advise it on how to cut our deficit. So we now have a private company setting priorities for Canadians. Deloitte Inc. is tied to the republican party in the US and has been accused of corruption in other countries. We may as well have a sign up telling the world WE are open for corruption. Why isn't this all over the media and the progressive discussion threads> It is frightening and makes me want to review characteristics of fascism.
Is that the company making $90,000.00 a day? Probably will be some payback to the Cons for their generosity in hiring them.
The story was carried by CP and is on the CBC website. Apparently IBM Canada, Bell, and Ernst & Young were also invited to bid:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/09/20/harper-cuts-consultant.html
IBM Canada and Bell? Those two don't make sense when you're looking for consultants to audit programs and operations. Mind you the 20 million ticket price makes no sense unless there are massive material costs (software/hardware) associated with the contract.
ETA: corrected the outrageous ticket price - I went overboard.
Wasn't this the job the Conservatives were running to do? And now they want to pay someone else? WTF?
Do you maybe mean $20 million (second paragraph of story) rather than $20 billion?
They have a deep and abiding mistrust of the Canadian civil service so they went to their private sector buddies. They can't trust a public servant with the public interest only a corporate entity has the right perspective.
great point Sarann! There is a huge conflict of interest in having multinational corporations decide which government services are expendable and which are not. And you're right, this is what we hire a civil service for--to do the work that government needs to get done.
This has been a huge problem for some time, governments hiring private firms to do auditing and reports about what policies should be and it of course comes at a huge cost to us, usually for nothing. Where i live in winnipeg, they hired some ritzy pr firm from new york millions to "rebrand the city"...after the first AD came out and everyone saw it was nonsense, it was gone for good. never seen it again, a total waste of money and a good example of how this stuff works.
The reports are often shelved, the recommendations often not followed except what the government wanted to do anyways. It's also EXTREMELY subjective and anti-democratic.
The firm was Tudhope Interbrand, milo. It was a ridiculous exercise and the branding effort fell flat. There are certain services that the Civil Service no longer has the capacity to fullfil, like advertising and publishing. But program review and auditing is certainly within their capacity. This is a total sham and many of these multinationals like KPMG, Deloitte Touche and Anderson Consulting have a record of cooking the books.
Four more years of majority right wing conservative politics to come. Ugh.
With these fascist (yes,FASCIST..there's no need to call them anything else) ideologues holding all the power in Parliament and the Senate,they can pass any law or policy their little pea-sized black hearts desire..And they are.
How many days has Parliament reopened?
Funny how the 'stewards of the economy' clearly want to drive this country into the ground to become Netanyahoo's Israel here in the Americas.....(guess who will be playing the role of the Palestinians)
And there is nothing any of us can do about it.
Look what's going on at week #1....It makes me physically sick to think of week #208.
R.I.P. Canada
This is supposed to be a democracy. We elect people to represent us but they are calling on others to do that. 10 Billion dollars sent on consultants. Does that mean the government is not capable of doing its work? Who is making decisions in this country? Is it not illegal for consultants to run the country? These are private entities. They are not making diecisions in the public interest. And think of the opportunities for corruption, kick backs and all that kind of stuff.
Can we do anything about it? Canadians I have noticed lately are apathetic and submissive it seems. We can make noise. We can call for Harper's resignation loud and long on every platform we can find every time he makes decisions counter to the public interest.
I may criticize the Romanow govt over how many cuts they made but jeez...at least they made their own cuts!
What will it take to wake up all the Canadians who have been asleep for 5 years?
Maybe 2015 will be a repeat performance of 1993....Odds are probably not.
$90K/day could easily be spent on health care...The billions they plan to spend on jailing as many Canadians as possible could be spent on affordable housing and education.
'Stewards of the economy'...right.
More like the 'stewards of the 4 horsemen'
Is it at all possible to think that the PROVINCES can VETO portions of the ominous crime bill because it will bankrupt them?
To be paying a private company TAX $$$ to cut services to tax payers is disgusting and vile.
Why do Canadians seem to not care?...What happened to this country?
especially if that company might have an interest in seeing more government services contracted out to private corporations like themselves or other companies they invest in.
my main problem besides that is that in a democracy it's not about what some private firm decides can and can't be cut but what the public wants. i.e. we might choose to not invest billions in military hardware, police, prisons, tax cuts for the rich etc. rather than getting rid of programs for the poor, libraries, infrastructure investments etc.
If Harpo and his minnions privatize everything under the sun (as it appears is their agenda) I now understand the private jails and this crime bill.
Heating costs are expensive enough as a public resource....The costs of drugs and health care will only be affordable for those who are of a high income.
Housing is already unaffordable,rising unemployment and a depleted mental health system will increase homelessness,hunger and general desperation.
Add on top of that the reality that issues of addiction are rooted in poverty,as well as mental illness (depression)
So Harper's buddies will buy up the prisons for cheap.
I don't recognize this country..We're veering right of the U.S.
Isn't Israel a society of the 'free market'?
Maybe that's why right wingers love Israel as much as they do...and as I mentioned in a previous post,Israel is like a social experiment where Canada's poor and working poor will be oppressed and persecuted much like the Palestinians.
oh and I forgot...They are also introducing the Patriot Act to Canada.
You know,I could be wrong..I'm certainly no expert..But what I see isn't very good.
But where does one run to?
Revolution Now!!!