TORONTO The Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships (CCPPP) has told a Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) researcher that it must decline your registration for a breakfast featuring a former British railway union leader and the Lord Mayor of London.
Researcher Shelly Gordon received the telephone message this morning after she called the CCPPP yesterday to register for the $45 breakfast, scheduled for April 30 at the National Club in Toronto. The event features Lew Adams, former general secretary of ASLEF, the train drivers union. According to CCPPP, Adams will provide an important message he would like our Canadian unions to hear.
Robert Finch, Lord Mayor of the City of London, is the other featured speaker. The Lord Mayors role on behalf of the Corporation of London includes promoting British financial and business services at home and abroad. He is scheduled to visit Quebec Premier Jean Charest next week. Charest, whose government is moving forward with public-private partnership (P3) hospital projects, met with Finch during a European trip last January.
As the union representing more than half a million public sector workers in Canada, we have as much interest in hearing these speakers as any private corporation trolling for opportunities to make money from public services, says Paul Moist, CUPEs National President.
Were especially keen to hear what they have to say since the release earlier this month of a report from the all-party Transport Committee of the British House of Commons, which condemns the privatization of the UK rail system.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is also expected to release a report in the next few weeks criticizing the British government for keeping P3 projects off the public books. Britain currently owes more than 100 billion in repayments to P3 companies between now and 2029. IMF Acting Managing Director, Dr. Anne Krueger said recently: When the government takes all the financial risks, this is a public activity and it has no business being treated as something outside the public sector budget.
For more information, contact:
Paul Moist
CUPE National President
613-558-2873 (cell)
Shelly Gordon
CUPE Research
416-292-3999 ext 245
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