Canada’s Debate

Boy, my prognostications are getting better and better aren’t they? I write a post about the Harper/Flaherty response to the infrastructure deficit report issued this week and suggest that it is a part of their plan to encourage the privatization of as many government services/programs as possible, and the very same day they suggest that P3’s are the solution to this problem.

Ok, enough horn-tooting. What’s important here is that the Conservatives’ feathers are showing, and badly. Private-public-partnerships may seem inocuous enough, but they are always the result of politics and/or desperation: governments pursue them either as a way to quietly disengage from the public sector, or to avoid paying for something that they are responsible for and cannot afford. Given the recent massive surpluses announced by the Tories, and projections for matching future windfalls, I think we can eliminate desperation as a motive for encouraging privatization. The fact that he is willing to suggest it so casually and quickly really betrays his motives, and in Harper’s government, you’d better believe that what the Finance Minister wants, the Prime Minister wants as well.

That Flaherty is suggesting them as an out for cities and provinces comes as no surprise… that he would do so less than a day after rejecting a desperate (and justified) funding plea tells me that he doesn’t care if people finally grasp his intentions, or he figures that the issue is low on everyone’s radar and nobody will make the connection. My concern is that he is correct on the latter.

Make no mistake, Flaherty isn’t suggesting P3’s so he can avoid funding costly infrastructure repairs and keep paying for his ill-advised GST cuts, he is suggesting it because he wants it. Once the private sector gets its foot in the government-service door, law, economics and politics make it almost impossible to close them out… and nothing would make Stephen Harper and his ultra-conservative Finance Minister happier.