The Council of Canadians Guelph chapter hosted a town hall meeting in opposition to public-private partnerships (P3s) this past February 22.
The town hall featured Natalie Mehra of the Ontario Health Coalition, Jeremy Thibodeau of the We Own It Campaign, and Rosario Marchese of the Citizen Coalition Against Privatization of Hydro One.
The promotion for the event noted, “Learn how P3s affect you. A panel discussion and open Q&A session about Public-Private Partnerships.”
The Council of Canadians stands with the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) which says, “Privatization undermines these community values. Contracting out and public-private partnerships are risky and expensive for municipalities and citizens. Costs rise, quality suffers and local control is weakened. Services are less accessible, and projects are delayed. Public funds are diverted from core services to corporate profits.”
Ontario has done more P3s than any other government in Canada. There are about 40 P3 hospitals in Ontario.
In October 2012, The Globe and Mail reported, “A study of 28 Ontario P3 projects worth more than $7-billion [by] University of Toronto assistant professor Matti Siemiatycki and researcher Naeem Farooqi found that public-private partnerships cost an average of 16 per cent more than conventional tendered contracts. That’s mainly because private borrowers typically pay higher interest rates than governments. Transaction costs for lawyers and consultants also add about 3 per cent to the final bill.”
Then in December 2014, The Globe and Mail also reported, “Public-private partnerships have cost Ontario taxpayers nearly $8-billion more on infrastructure over the past nine years than if the government had successfully built the projects itself [according to] Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk.”
Council of Canadians chapters in Ontario are currently campaigning against the partial privatization of Hydro One.
In October 2015, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne confirmed that 60 per cent of Hydro One, the publicly-owned provincial electrical transmission and distribution utility, would be sold to raise $9 billion to pay down the provincial debt and to fund public transit and infrastructure projects. We have argued against the sale saying public ownership is the best option, there is no evidence that private ownership leads to cost savings, rate payers could face higher costs as transnational corporations buy shares in the utility, and that Hydro One turns over about $750 million in revenue annually to the province that is reinvested in schools, hospitals and other critical infrastructure.
And now the Trudeau government has launched an infrastructure bank that would manage $15 billion of federal infrastructure funds and $20 billion being sought from private investors. This bank is being touted as a way to move beyond traditional P3s and to build toll bridges, energy grids, water systems and more.
The Council of Canadians rejects public-private partnerships as expensive and problematic – and supports low-cost public financing instead of high-cost private financing (given investors expect returns in the 7 to 9 per cent range on their investments) for public infrastructure.
