(Truro) - The president of CUPE Nova Scotia says two Chignecto Central Regional School Board members are ill-informed if they think P3 schools are a solution for the area.
Danny Cavanagh says, “Comments from Ron Marks and Marilyn Thompson fly in the face of the province’s own experience with P3 schools. They were a bad idea when they were introduced by the previous Liberal government and Rodney MacDonald is going to get no support trying to reintroduce them now.”
Says Cavanagh, “Even the Chronicle-Herald, a fairly conservative, pro-business paper, recently described P3’s as a ‘shell game of debt hide and seek’. Nova Scotians have figured out that the only winners in a P3 are the private partners who make huge profits from our tax dollars.”
“The premier would like us to believe they have ‘learned from the past mistakes’ of previous public-private partnerships. Meanwhile, the provincial government in Ontario recently went ahead with three privately built and operated hospitals and the cost overruns for those are currently approaching $1 billion,” says Cavanagh.
“I urge all of the Chignecto School Board members not to buy into the hype and propaganda about P3’s. Contrary to what the name implies, they are not partnerships. Extensive research has shown that only the private partners benefit with windfall profits, while taxpayers get left holding the bag.
“The bottom line is P3’s are a bad deal because they divert taxes intended for public services to private profit. It’s that simple,” he says.
For information:
Danny Cavanagh John McCracken
President, CUPE Nova Scotia CUPE Communications Representative
(902) 957-0822 (Cell) (902) 455-4180 (o)`