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Windsor - Judy Darcy, National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), told delegates at the union’s Ontario convention today that the fight against privatization does not end with the Hydro One court victory.

Urging delegates to continue to push the provincial government to abandon its bid to sell Hydro, Darcy spoke of the Tories’ determination to privatize public services. “With Hydro, they tried to sell off the crown jewels – our crown jewels – at costume jewelry prices. They had no political mandate to do it, they had no legal authority to do it - but they did it any way.” She urged all CUPE Ontario locals to make this fight a priority, saying, “Write, fax and phone your MPPs. Tell them that in the next election you will be voting for candidates who support public power.”

Canadians enjoy the most reliable and cheapest source of energy in the world because we have public utilities,” said Darcy. “Our public utilities generate billions of dollars of revenue that can be reinvested in our economy – that can help pay for schools, hospitals, public services. Why would any sane government want to give it up?”

Darcy called upon delegates to escalate the fight against privatization in their communities, citing threats to water, education and health care. “There is no public service that the privatizers aren’t coming after – and they’re doing it with a vengeance,” said Darcy.

If the so-called “kinder, gentler” Eves government wants to try and gut our collective agreements through legislation, if this government goes after hard-won protections against contracting-out and privatization, we will stand together and fight them as a union,” said Darcy. “We are saying to Ernie Eves and his privatizing cronies: ‘If you come after any of our collective agreements, you’ll be coming after our whole union. If you come after our schools, our hospitals, our hydro utilities, our social service agencies, our universities, then you are taking us all on.’”

CUPE represents 180,000 working women and men in Ontario, many of whom work for municipalities, hospitals, school boards and universities.

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For further information, please contact:
Susan Ruffo, Executive Assistant to Judy Darcy,
(613) 447-5983 cell
Andrea Addario, CUPE Communications,
(416) 738-4329 cell