NAPE bashes privatization in new ad campaign
Newfoundland and Labrador's largest public sector union on Monday released the first in a series of advertisements condemning the privatization of public services.
NAPE's animated commercial paints a bleak picture of private services, saying that the public will have "no one to turn to when things go wrong—and they will."
"Save money? Forget it!" says the narrator, as he describes costs going up, fees increasing, and worsening services in provinces where privatization is common.
"Using public money for private profit is a proven failure."
Finance Minister Cathy Bennett has said the Liberals are now considering private-public partnerships to deliver government services as a way of dealing with Newfoundland and Labrador's financial crisis.
"The situation is unprecedented ... We have to have a frank and open discussion about the many possibilities that we have to consider," Bennett told reporters in mid-February.
Profit incentive will hurt public services: Earle
NAPE president Jerry Earle told CBC Monday that his union will fight against this possibility.
"Clearly from what we have seen as an organization, it's not good for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador."
"The first objective of a private company is they have to make profit … governments are accountable to people, companies are not."
The union gathered privatization information from across Canada for this campaign, looking at areas such as long-term care, motor vehicle registration and highways.
Earle maintains that privatization in other jurisidictions created problems, and was regressive rather than innovative.
"In some instances, it may get some instant money today for services but that is lacking long-term vision, because once you lose a public service it's pretty much gone," he said, adding that people will still have to pay for these private companies to operate.
"It's not a case where the private company does it without taxpayers' money, they do it with taxpayers money — so it's still mine and your taxes going to be being turned over to a private company [and] not have to be accountable to us as taxpayers."
NAPE said the campaign will consist of a series of ads that will be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the union released a commercial on Monday promoting its role as a union as part of it "positive image campaign."