Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Pat Steenberg observes that the Harper Cons’ deficits are the result of conscious choices to reduce government revenue – and that we can…
Privatization
Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Murray Dobbin contrasts the B.C. NDP’s recent election loss against the type of popular focus which helped Saskatchewan’s CCF to earn a…
Don’t Privatize ISC
My op-ed in today’s Saskatoon StarPhoenix (page A11): Privatizing ISC is a poor deal for Saskatchewan The provincial government estimates that selling 60 per cent of the Information Services Corporation…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Michael Babad takes a look at Bureau of Labor Statistics data on wages and employment levels – reaching the conclusion that the corporatist…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your Monday reading. – Michael Harris tears into the Cons for their latest set of Senate abuses: It is time once more to throw up on your…
Chemo drug scandal: Why would Peterborough contract out in the first place?
Craig Woudsma is the reluctant hero of the so-called “chemo drug scandal.” He is the OPSEU pharmacy assistant at the Peterborough Regional Health Centre who stopped to question the differences…
Wednesday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Linda McQuaig discusses Stephen Harper’s class war: Canadians don’t like Harper’s anti-worker agenda — when they notice it. That’s why there’s been such…
On implausible assumptions
I’ve made the case questioning gratuitous privatization of SLGA’s liquor sales (as well as a controlling stake in ISC) based on the actual profit levels associated with real Crowns. So…
Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Andrew Simms and Stephen Reid note that the corporatist dogma that everything is done more efficiently in the private sector has no…
Are Ontario P3 projects plagued by corruption?
A commission of inquiry has heard that SNC-Lavalin deliberately went around Quebec’s political party financing rules, leading to a flurry of donations to the governing Quebec Liberal Party in 2009.…
On giveaways
CBC reports some of the numbers surrounding the Wall government’s planned giveaway of the majority of Saskatchewan’s Information Service Corporation. But let’s take a closer look at exactly what Wall…
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?…
Ontario P3 fiasco: $90 million cost to finance $59 million loan
The majority of the costs reported by the Auditor General for the cancellation of the Mississauga gas plant were payments to the U.S. based investment firm that provided financing for…
Chemo fiasco – – the real perils of secrecy
Martin Regg Cohn, Queen’s Park columnist for the Toronto Star, expressed his outrage at some length today over the College of Pharmacists not answering media questions quickly enough about the…
Score Another One For Orwell
If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever. – George Orwell As always, the writer had exceptional clarity about where…
Free Speech and the Privatization of Public Space
Donald Smith was protesting a sign at Glenmore Landing in Calgary’s southwest Sunday that bans political demonstrations. The privately owned parking lot near the prime minister’s constituency office asserts that…
Why Health Care Should Be Privatized
It would be a risky claim to suggest health care should be privatized while education, from preschool to post-secondary, should be fully publicly provided, but considering the importance of education,…
Contracting out costs soar 26% per year
Contracting out of medical transcription work is becoming more common in Ontario hospitals. So it is noteworthy that our sister union in BC, the Hospital Employees Union, reports today that…
Renting seniors’ beds is a formula for failure – and it’s time for Alberta to stop doing it
Fresh air and yogurt might have helped these guys live to be 160, but if they’d lived in Alberta, instead of Russia, where could they afford to sleep? Below, seniors…
Private clinic deal ends badly while Ontario inks up more
Health Edition reports that the Quebec Health Minister has decided not to renew the contract with RocklandMD, the private hospital that has done about 9,000 publicly funded surgeries since 2008…