The move to privatize public services in Saskatchewan was highlighted by the provincial branch of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in their documentary released Friday, June 3.
CUPE Saskatchewan released the documentary hoping to reveal privatization schemes in the province that have flown under residents’ radars.
“A lot of people don’t really understand how much privatization has actually happened,” said Judy Henley, President of CUPE Saskatchewan. “We’re trying to create awareness.”
Saskatchewan has a very special relationship to their public services, according to the documentary producer, Suzanne Gallant. She said that, as stated in the opening sequence of the documentary, Saskatchewan is a sparsely distributed province so residents have historically had to rely on Crown corporations.
Gallant said she is especially proud of the way the documentary ‘unveils’ privatization schemes in Saskatchewan that people are not aware of. The film unpacks public-private partnerships (P3s), outsourcing and intentional understaffing. These tactics are used to maximize profit but leave many issues with services such as healthcare and education, according to the film.
The attacks on Crown corporations have been hurting CUPE members, according to Henley.
“Our members don’t work for the Crowns but it is affecting our members in the fact that they don’t have those services available to them anymore. We have many members who live in rural Saskatchewan and they don’t have things like the STC anymore. Many services have been moved into city centers and people just don’t realize that that’s happening,” Henley said.
For her part, Gallant said she hopes to use the documentary for educational purposes. She looks ahead at the possibility of showing the film in libraries, taking it to festivals and sparking conversations.
“Saskatchewan is very anti-privatization,” Gallant said, “but people don’t connect this anti-privatization with their voting preferences.”
Gallant said that since the Saskatchewan Party came into power in 2007, public services have become increasingly privatized. She pointed to the privatization timeline put together by the CUPE documentary team that shows how healthcare, schools, public liquor and more have been slowly pushed into the private sector.
Gallant said the dangers of privatization highlighted by Saskatchewan need to be acknowledged across Canada. Gallant has been seeking cancer treatment in Ontario and said she can already see the effects of privatization there.
“It is clear our healthcare workers are not in a position to care for us,” Gallant said. “They are overworked and burnt out.”
Gallant said she has left the hospital after treatments and opened her phone to advertisements of private healthcare services.
“Saskatchewan is like a canary in a coal mine,” Gallant said. “All around the world we need to be learning from these failures. We can look at Saskatchewan as an example of the failures of privatization.”
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