Now Premier Doug Ford is implementing a Public Private Partnership bank known as a P3 to stem the flow of red ink in Ontario. There is no free money! It should be no surprise that Ford Is bringing in more privatization measures. It is his go to principle when in trouble.
Have the Ford Conservatives even looked at the dismal record of public asset privatization around the world. It was astonishing that given this P3 record that Trudeau introduced just such a privatization bank in 2017.
With the world on fire most people would agree that the climate crisis is a major threat.
The biggest contributing factor to the climate crisis is human greed. Introducing more opportunities to maximize profits is not going to fix this emergency.
There are three kinds of privatization. First is the outright sale of a public asset or service. The second is leasing public assets to the private sector. The third and most insidious form of privatization are Public Private Partnerships known as P3’s.
P3’s are nothing more than public relations and publicity ploys to pretty up profit, Where the private profits and the people pay! They sell the myth that somehow free money is to be had. Privatization, like tax cuts and cutting red tape (deregulation) are the core principles of the Conservative party.
One doesn’t have to look far for failed examples of privatization. The privatization of long-term care homes where more than 4,000 people died during the pandemic, many from neglect. The privatization of Highway 407 and Hydro has left the people of Ontario with no appetite for anymore privatization of public assets. The privatization of Connaught labs legacy left by Mulroney hurt us badly during the pandemic.
In the UK, the privatization of rail, electricity and water as well as the P3 privatization of hospitals has affected people very badly there. New Zealand and Australia also had expensive experiences with P3 privatizations in school and hospital construction.
The most famous privatization gone bad was Cochabamba Bolivia when water was privatized, martial law was declared there after two popular uprisings, then water was put back under public control. In Europe, during the deprivatization trend in 2010, most water and electricity facilities leased or sold to the private sector were brought back under public control.
Governments did not privatize public assets during the First or Second World Wars nor did they during the Great Depression. They wisely kept those public assets for the future. We worked our way out of those terrible times with a robust public sector and non-profit public enterprise and that is what we must do now. Take a look at the public power model, the most successful public enterprise in Canadian history.
Conservation, green power and new electrical infrastructure are going to be a very critical part of the climate change fight. One hundred and eighteen years ago, public power was implemented in the province of Ontario with the motto “power at cost for the people”. The rest of the country quickly copied that very successful model.
This country wide public enterprise quickly made Canada’s economy very successful. The people are ready and more than willing to fight climate change if they do not get gouged.
To get buy-in from the public, the new motto could be “green power at cost for the people”. Forming the Public Green Power Authority, The PGPA whose mandate is to implement effective conservation measures and electrical generation from renewables like wind and solar. Australia shows the way with its public green power model as does, in of all places, New York with public green power.
The Jurisdictions that are going to have wind and solar farms need to be told that they are going to benefit from the at-cost rates and from the employment that public green power is going to create. A very easy sell.
The sun shines and the winds blow for free. Allowing private companies to maximize profits off of that fact is completely absurd.
The publicly built, publicly owned at -cost model can be used for all infrastructure projects.
Greed got the world’s climate into a critical crisis and greed is certainly not going to get us out of this crisis. Both Ford and The Prime Minister would be well advised to immediately dismantle their P3 privatization bank schemes and build public cooperation to fight climate change with public enterprise that will benefit all Canadians not just the private few. We must get on the pathway of harm reduction leading to harm elimination, as soon as possible.
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