Group items tagged

Toronto Star Thu Dec 11 2014

How Liberals wasted billions, Dec. 10 The boss of Infrastructure Ontario does not get it. He robotically dismisses the bombshell from Ontario's auditor general that 74 private-public-partnership (P3) infrastructure projects, many of them hospitals, cost us $8 billion more than if the province had financed them publicly. That's $8 billion squandered, most of that in higher borrowing costs. Money that has not been available for badly needed patient care in hospitals, resident care in nursing homes and better home and community care. The AG has shown that P3s are a bad deal for Ontarians. It's the second time an Ontario AG has reached this conclusion. It is the height of arrogance for an official to pretend otherwise. There's a valuable lesson here, one that we hope our premier will take to heart: P3s are not good value for money. They should not be used by the province as the vehicle to fund and build capital projects. The AG has given the premier all the evidence she needs.

The alternative is what the Liberals are passing off as their health reforms: billions of dollars more in cuts to hospitals, long-term care and home care to make up for the billions misspent on P3 deals. Michael Hurley, president, Ontario Council of Hospital Unions/CUPE Ten years ago Ontario faced a large health-care infrastructure deficit. The government frequently experienced significant cost overruns and delays on large, complex infrastructure projects like the Sudbury Hospital. Since then the government has used Alternative Finance and Procurement for many of its largest and most complex projects, including the successful completion of Sudbury Hospital. Over the last 10 years, 40 infrastructure projects - including 27 new hospitals - have been completed across the province using this approach. Ninety-seven per cent of our projects have been delivered on budget, and nearly three quarters on schedule. The AFP model has created over $6 billion in value for government and taxpayers over the past decade. Bert Clark, president and CEO, Infrastructure Ontario

Government's own report full of concerns about public-private partnerships. By Keith Reynolds, 8 Jan 2015, TheTyee.ca

Premier Christy Clark: her government's December report on how Partnerships BC decides to construct deals raises concerns of bias, conflict of interest and dubious decision making.

The B.C. Finance Ministry has produced a report much more critical of Partnerships B.C. and its activities around public-private partnerships (P3s) than might have been expected by a province so committed to the practice. It raises issues of conflict of interest, dubious practices and questionable assumptions in the multi-billion dollar program. The story has received virtually no media coverage. While it is likely the province will continue to push P3s with undiminished enthusiasm for large projects, the report and surrounding documents acknowledge many of the criticisms of P3s raised by other groups including both the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and the B.C. Construction Association. [Among critical analyses published by The Tyee since 2004 are these here, here, here and here -- ed.]

October 23, 2014

Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow spoke against a proposed public-private partnership (P3) hospital in Saskatchewan last night. The Brad Wall provincial government wants to build the P3 hospital in North Battleford, a city located about 130 kilometres north-west of Saskatoon. The hospital would have 188 beds for mental health patients as well as an adjoining 96 cell correctional facility. The government is seeking proposals from three groupings of for-profit companies. The consortium chosen would design, build, finance and maintain the P3 hospital.

NORTH BATTLEFORD - Health care workers in the Prairie North Health Authority are growing more concerned about the New Sask. Hospital, which is being built as a public-private partnership. Yesterday, the government announced the three companies that are bidding on developing the project. “A P3 hospital is a new thing for our community and for the province of Saskatchewan,” said Brian Manegre, President of CUPE Local 5111. “We need to make sure we have good information about what the impact could be.” “There have been significant challenges with P3 hospitals in other jurisdictions,” said Manegre. “Evidence from Canada and the UK shows that P3 hospitals cost more and that there are issues about transparency and accountability.”

one of the most complex construction projects ever undertaken in Canada - a $1.99billion plan to build a French-language mega hospital

nine years of construction before it opens as scheduled in 2020

four equity partners, all European

Jan 29, 2009

Parks and Terhart evaluated four P3 projects: the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre, the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement, the Academic Ambulatory Care Centre (Diamond Centre) and the Canada Line. Based on this review, they find that developing the projects as P3s is more expensive than if they were done publicly.

Vancouver Sun Thu Mar 13 2014

B.C. is second to Ontario in the number of public-private partnerships operating or in the works, but we started earlier and, based on relative size, we're farther down this road than any other province.

B.C. is most heavily into health care projects - things like the new state-of-the-art hospital facilities in Abbotsford, Surrey and Victoria - that account for 10 of the province's 23 P3s. There are also roads like the Sea to Sky Highway and South Fraser Perimeter Road, as well as smaller projects like housing and corrections facilities.

The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) Tue Jul 7 2015

The Saskatchewan government has chosen the companies that will build a new joint psychiatric hospital and jail in North Battleford. And for the second time in a month, the government has selected the winning bidder for a public-private partnership project without releasing the cost of the project. "The P3 model is the right choice for delivering this leading-edge project in the most cost-effective and timely way," SaskBuilds Minister Gordon Wyant said in a Monday government news release. The government and winning partnership of companies intend to finalize and sign the contract for the design, build, maintain, and finance agreement this summer, the news release says.

The new 188-bed Saskatchewan Hospital will replace the centuryold North Battleford building that residents say is decrepit and lacks privacy. Tacked on to the new hospital will be a 96-room correctional centre for inmates who have mental health problems. The two groups won't be mixing together, the government has said. The buildings are scheduled to open by spring 2018.

Posted on December 9, 2014

If there is any trace of self-respect left within the Ontario government, Premier Kathleen Wynne should do the right thing and pull the plug on Infrastructure Ontario’s public-private partnership (P3) program now.

FREDERICTON – The New Brunswick Liberal Government should reassess its endorsement of public-private partnership (P3) infrastructure constructions now that its federal counterpart has signaled a move away from a P3 funding model for large infrastructure projects.

Privatization of health care has been a controversial subject for quite some time in this province. Wayne Lucas, president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Newfoundland and Labrador, was in Corner Brook Monday to make sure the argument against it didn't lose any steam heading into next week's provincial election. Local union members held a demonstration outside Western Memorial Regional Hospital targeting health-care workers with information about the government's plan to privatize long-term care facilities under the public-private-partnership (P3) model. "We want to make sure our members, especially health-care members, know about the pitfalls of public-private-partnerships," Lucas said.

He said the union's protest against these types of partnerships goes back to the former Liberal government in the early 2000s. Lucas said the cost overruns experienced under such models in Ontario is one of the most staggering reasons not to move ahead with such plans. There is also fear the operation of such a facility with a private company's thirst for profit will interfere with the delivery of quality service, Local 488 president Ernest Green said.

een, who was busy handing out information leaflets Monday, said inequality in the workforce could create animosity, which could also negatively affect the level of care provided. "If the bottom line is to make a healthy buck, obviously that would mean having less staff than we have now," Green said. "We all know, in the public system now, we are running on short staff a lot of the time."

May 6, 2015

CUPE members in Newfoundland and Labrador are leaving their division convention ready to defeat Premier Paul Davis’ privatization plans. The provincial Conservatives recently announced plans to privatize 360 new long-term care beds through public-private partnerships (P3s). CUPE’s fightback was launched at a powerful rally on the steps of the provincial House of Assembly that brought workers together with one clear message: our public services are not for sale. More than 60 members and staff built union capacity and strategized about fighting privatization in a pre-convention conference. They left primed to connect with members and the community about the value of public services, including by being regular callers to the province’s popular and influential open line shows.

Fredericton – While hospitals operate under health authorities and schools work under districts, nursing homes, home-care and other community care services (CCS) remain rudderless.

I fear the planned P3 nursing home deal in Miramichi reveals more than a bad trend in Atlantic Canada,” said Légère. “Private sector is currently taking advantage of lack of regulation and structure to establish facilities that are the most profitable and do not offer what citizens truly need,” he added.

Contracting Out Hospital Work to Private Clinics – Backgrounder For years CUPE has been concerned the Ontario government would transfer public hospital surgeries and diagnostic tests to private clinics. CUPE began campaigning in earnest against this possibility some years ago with a tour of the province by British Health Secretary Frank Dobson who talked about the disastrous British experience with private surgical clinics.Unfortunately, the provincial Liberal government has now moved in this direction. The door opened a few years ago with the introduction of fee for service hospital funding (sometimes called Activities Based Funding). Then in the fall of 2013 the government announced regulatory changes to facilitate this privatization, with the government finally announcing Request for Proposals for the summer of 2014.

Hospitals are the main focus of the government’s health care cuts. They do not see community hospitals as providing a broad range of services to the local ... [Read More]population, but instead wish to remove an untold range of services from local hospitals and transfer them to specialized private clinics. The proposal would remove the most lucrative, high volume and easiest procedures from community hospitals. The remaining community hospitals would be left with the most difficult services. If they chose to compete with the private clinics, they would have to specialize in a narrow range of services. The government’s plan is the opposite of one-stop, integrated public health care. This proposed privatization of surgeries and diagnostic tests is in addition to the aggressive attempts to remove non-acute care services from hospitals (e.g. outpatient clinics, complex continuing care, rehabilitation, long-term care, primary care, etc.). As acute care currently accounts for only about 1/3 of current hospital funding, these attacks are a grave threat to the viability of community hospitals, and in fact we are now seeing a wave of hospital shut-downs that is somewhat reminiscent of the Mike Harris era. Despite the government’s rhetoric about keeping care non-profit, services that are being cut from local hospitals now are being privatized to for-profit owned corporations. Even if the private clinics did start out as non-profit (which has not been the case so far) the whole system of private clinics could be privatized with a stroke of a pen.

Ontario Health Care Privatization: The push for health care privatization in Ontario picked up in 2001 when Ontario Health Minister Tony Clement announced two privatized P3 hospital projects, the Royal Ottawa and the Brampton Civic (part of William Osler Health Centre). Spirited community-based campaigns, including P3 plebiscites in many towns, forced the Liberal government to greatly narrow the scope of the privatization of support jobs (i.e. CUPE jobs) in subsequent P3 hospitals. Nevertheless privatization of the hospital financing continues, despite revelations by the provincial Auditor General that confirmed claims by CUPE and others that the Osler project cost hundreds of millions more due to the P3.

announced it was going to build two hospitals on Vancouver Island in Campbell River and in the Comox Valley

This will make about eight hospitals that BC has built as public private partnerships under the Liberal government.

problems with PFI, including the costly contracting process and the prospect of little risk being transferred but high returns being enjoyed by  investors

The report, Flawed, Failed, Abandoned: 100 P3s, Canadian & International Evidence, documents dubious P3 projects in the health, municipal and education sectors, providing examples in provinces across Canada, as well as in Australia, England, Scotland and Wales. I

“P3s have been about private investors and companies dipping their hands in the public purse, at the expense of taxpayers." — Jerry Earle, NAPE President-elect 

Jerry Earle, Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees (NAPE/NUPGE) President-elect is expressing his fierce opposition to the government’s announcement that they will be moving to a public-private partnership (P3) model for long term care in the province. Privatization of health care more costly 

St. John's (04 May 2015) 

CUPE looks at P3s Canadian Union of Public Employees national and provincial presidents will be in the city Thursday as part of a conversation on keeping North Bay public. National president Paul Moist and Ontario president Fred Hahn, as well as CUPE economist Toby Sanger and Ontario Health Coalition executive director Natalie Mehra will discuss public-private partnerships at the session. According to CUPE, the city is under pressure to privatize through P3s, but as we've seen with our hospital, P3s cost more and deliver less." The session will be held at the Best Western North Bay from 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday. The session is sponsored by the North Bay and District Labour Council.

TRURO – A new report from the Auditor General of Ontario is ringing the alarm bell on the cost to taxpayers of P3 projects – and the McNeil Liberals better take heed. That warning comes today from CUPE Nova Scotia President Danny Cavanagh, who says, “This is just the latest in a series of Auditors General who have made it quite clear that these so-called ‘Public-Private Partnerships’ are costing taxpayers a bundle.

Posted on December 11, 2014

Infrastructure Ontario CEO Bert Clark says the $8 billion premium the government spent to build public infrastructure under the public-private partnership model doesn’t tell the whole story. He’s right, but likely not in the way he’s suggesting. Remarkably Tuesday night Clark clung to the $14 billion in savings Infrastructure Ontario says is made possible through the privatized model of infrastructure development even though the Auditor General made it clear that figure is based on flawed comparisons and a lack of empirical data to support it. In today’s Toronto Star he downgraded it to $6 billion.