Editor:
Thank you for your report on the negative impact on workers of the Trellis deal. I was formerly involved in organizing in this sector and the concerns of the workers are all too familiar. Thanks to the B.C. Liberals, people employed in health care have fewer rights than most others. The Liberals either know of this trauma and do not care or are wilfully blind. In this circumstance, a large number of citizens here on the Coast are quite simply being abused.
Why? is the question. Employees are facing insecurity and, if hired, will see decreases in remuneration including benefits and pensions. The cost of constructing a private facility will be borne by the public over the term of any contract. It is very likely to be a higher cost than a public facility. Financing costs are higher and profit is included. Residents will see a decrease in care hours and may see, as we know from Powell River, a decrease in food quantity and quality. The proposed facility is not as well located as the current facilities.
The only answers to the question of “why” are threefold. The first is that the costs to the public are carried “off the books” so that it appears that is not added to the ballooning provincial debt (which has been particularly steep under the Clark regime). Secondly, there is a blind ideological belief that somehow privately managed public services are better, contrary to the overwhelming evidence. Most significantly, a quick check of corporations and their executives associated with this development and others offering private care shows tens of thousands of dollars in donations to the BC Liberal Party. It is the same pattern with so many public contracts. It is the real reason that the BC Liberals refuse to even consider a ban on such influence peddling.
Paul Johnston, Roberts Creek
