(Halifax) – CUPE Nova Scotia says it will fight any attempts by the provincial government to implement new public-private-partnerships – better known as P3’s.
CUPE Nova Scotia President Danny Cavanagh says, “We were quite surprised to read a newspaper story last week saying that the Dexter government would be asking Stephen Harper to help pay for two public-private partnership projects.
“CUPE’s position on P3’s is quite clear and well known to Nova Scotians: they are a taxpayer rip off. There is no such thing as a good P3.”
Says Cavanagh, “From the outset, we have been critical of the Harper government’s plan to attach P3 strings to the Building Canada infrastructure money. Nova Scotia should not be taking money with those kinds of strings attached it.
“Public-private partnerships make no economic sense in the best of times, but the current financial meltdown has eroded their credibility even further. The current credit crisis is making it difficult for private-sector P3 partners to access capital and credit, which threatens to leave their public partners in the lurch,” he says.
In early September, the mayor of Montreal announced the suspension of a huge water P3 because of skyrocketing costs and conflict of interest allegations.
In British Columbia, meanwhile, the provincial government had to come to the rescue of the City of Vancouver to the tune of $1 billion dollars after the private ‘partner’ financing the construction of the Olympic Village bailed out.
For information:
Danny Cavanagh John McCracken
President, CUPE Nova Scotia CUPE Communications Representative
(902) 957-0822 (Cell) (902) 455-4180 (o)
cope491