Here, on Regina’s wastewater referendum as just the first step in encouraging regular citizen engagement in the decisions that affect us all. For further reading…– Again, Hugh Mackenzie’s analysis of the cost of private financing is here (PDF). And Barrie McKenna’s take on the hidden price of P3s is here.
Continue readingTag: P3s
Accidental Deliberations: To the polls!
Needless to say, it’s great news (as well as a pleasant surprise) that Regina will get a referendum on a proposed P3 wastewater treatment plant. And kudos to Regina Water Watch and everybody connected to the petition campaign for making that happen. But of course, the most important step comes
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: On double standards
Simon Enoch, Paul Dechene and Stephen Whitworth have already weighed in on the City of Regina’s choice to blow its nose on a petition that reflects citizen engagement in action. But I’m surprised nobody’s yet pointed out the vastly different treatment between two different aspects of the petition. As Dechene
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Saturday Morning Links
Assorted content for your weekend reading. – The Globe and Mail weighs in on the Lac-Mégantic tragedy by pointing out that we should be far more concerned about public safety than technical defences and excuses. Saskboy notes that as soon as a corporation’s business choices lead to a massive public
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Eric Dolan discusses Paul Piff’s research showing that wealth tends to lead to antisocial behaviour – and that even the beneficiaries of a rigged Monopoly game are quick to take on an air of entitlement: Across multiple studies, researchers at the University of
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Regina Hosed by P3 Waste Water
Regina City Council has voted to proceed with a 30-year public-private partnership (P3) in which a private company would design, build, finance, operate and maintain the city’s new waste water treatment facility. The municipal administration’s rationale has been that, although a P3 will be more expensive than traditional public financing,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Aviva Shen looks at Monsanto’s history of regulatory capture – with the recent “Monsanto Protection Act” serving as just a minor example in a long list of control over U.S. law: Monsanto insists that its revolving door is in overdrive because Monsanto employees
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – George Monbiot comments on the outsized influence of advertisers on children: How many people believe this makes the world a better place? A company called TenNine has hung hoardings in the corridors and common rooms of 750 British schools. Among its clients
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Michael Harris takes aim at Stephen Harper’s thugocracy: There is little that Stephen Harper has done that other prime ministers before him have not. But no one has used closure, time allocation, committee secrecy or omnibus legislation to a degree that renders Parliament
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
Assorted content for your Sunday reading. – Frank Graves’ review of the current state of Canadian politics focuses in on the growing gap between the Cons’ waning interest in listening to the public, and their growing expenditures on advertising and marketing: In Canada in 2006, the federal government spent roughly
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Privatization Via Blackmail
If you want to see why there isn’t much of a real left wing in the USA, this graph of those seeking the White House in 2008 pretty much covers it. 2008 US presidential candidates show little actual left wing juice. If you want proof of how the neoliberal US
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Barrie McKenna discusses the cost of public-private partnerships: Disturbing new research highlights some serious flaws in how governments tally the benefits of public-private partnerships versus conventional projects. Too little is known about how these contracts work, who benefits and who pays. This week,
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Quality Problems Plague Britain’s Largest Privatized Laboratory
The Guardian newspaper reported a decline in quality at the Kings College Hospital trust and the St. Thomas Hospital trust’s recently privatized pathology services. The report cited in the article found an increase in clinical ”incidents” in the first year of the for-profit laboratories operations, and failure to reach “ agreed targets
Continue readingOPSEU Diablogue: Bad week for private companies mining for profits in health care
This hasn’t been a good week for private companies mining big profits in Canada’s health system. Quebec police are probing a hospital private-public partnership deal awarded to SNC Lavalin Group Inc according to the Globe and Mail. Police raids took place … Continue reading →
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your weekend. – Will Hutton discusses how the increasing gaps in economic equality are leading to radical differences in opportunity – with the U.S./U.K. push toward private schooling serving as a particular source of exclusion: (T)he middle class of whatever ethnic background is spending more on
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Jeffrey Simpson criticizes the Cons for killing off the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy as punishment for telling the truth about climate change at its own request: In a letter to the National Round Table on the Environment and
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: Canada’s Self-Imposed Crisis in Post-Secondary Education
On June 7, I gave a keynote address to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees Education Sector Conference. My PowerPoint presentation (with full references) can be found at this link. Points I raised in the address include the following: -Canada’s economy has been growing quite steadily over the past three
Continue readingThe Progressive Economics Forum: When a University Recruits Abroad, Who’s in Charge?
A few years ago, I wrote an opinion piece on “pathway colleges”—i.e. private companies that recruit students from other countries and then ‘bridge’ them into Canadian universities by providing pre-university courses, including English as a Second Language. A recent CBC News article underlines how perilous such recruitment of post-secondary students from abroad can
Continue reading