(Halifax) – CUPE NL President Wayne Lucas says the Williams government has resisted the siren call of P3’s – so-called public-private-partnerships – in its infrastructure plans for the province.
Lucas says, “The Harper government has tried to push P3’s onto provinces and municipalities by hitching its Building Canada Fund to a requirement to explore P3’s. Our province, thankfully, is not going down that road.”
Says Lucas, “There is no shortage of analysis produced by CUPE and other organizations detailing the risks related to P3’s and how they work against the public good. Similar analysis and warnings were made public by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).”
The FCM report concluded there is no evidence to suggest that P3’s consistently cost less or provide better services than traditional projects. It is available for downloading at: http://www.cupe.bc.ca/files/fcm_p3report.pdf.
“Public Private Partnerships give the responsibility for financing projects to the private sector, even though traditional municipal financing is simpler, less costly and certainly more reliable than private financing, given the current economic meltdown” explains Lucas.
For information:
Wayne Lucas John McCracken
President, CUPE NL CUPE Communications Rep.