Cleaning house and putting public funds back to work

Bulletin
FEBRUARY 2013
Cleaning house
and putting
public funds
back to work
serving
the public
by Guy Laurion
Photo: Normand Blouin
vice-president,
category 2,
and political
leader
for the VPP
campaign
*
To read a report
on this study, go to
www.canadianlabour.ca/
issues/stop-corporate-taxgiveaways.
F
VALUING
PROMOTING
PRESERVING
PUBLIC SERVICES
| No. 5
or the past several months, Quebecers
have been struck by a shocking paradox:
while governments keep arguing that we
have to tighten our belts, while the bosses keep
calling on taxpayers to do their “fair share”, the
media report endless cases of collusion and
corruption in our society. Cost overruns, kickbacks to political parties and the Mob, business
cartels sharing contracts in secret—the list is
long, and the Charbonneau Commission continues to make new revelations about the
scope of this fraudulent charade.
How can anyone claim that we don’t have
the resources to fund public services, when
we have knowingly accepted cost overruns in
government contracts for
decades? Let’s not mince
words: this collusion directly serves the interest
of the proponents of privatization! Because shrinking public services means
opening the door wide for
patronage, and for businesses to do whatever they like. In these hard
economic times, we can no longer afford to pay
too much for private contracts that illegally fund
political parties and organized crime! We need
to take back control over our public finances,
and the only way to do that is by expanding our
public services.
As Josée Boileau stated in an editorial in the
newspaper Le Devoir on January 30, 2013, it
is disturbing to see businesses fighting against
any increase in their taxes when we learn that
at the same time, many of them don’t hesitate
to pay thousands of dollars in illegal bribes to
secure contracts. And these are the same businesses that are telling us to do our fair share!
In reality, as a study by the Canadian Labour
Congress has shown, far from stimulating
investment in the economy, tax cuts to businesses are sitting idle in their cash reserves!*
These reserves now exceed $575 billion, most
of which comes from public funds (because
the government has stopped trying to raise
revenues), and none of which goes to build
society. We need to remember this the next
time the Conseil du patronat (Quebec Employers Council) starts lecturing us about how
businesses in Quebec and Canada are taxed
too heavily.
What current events are showing us, between all the collusion, corruption, and squandering of public funds for the benefit of big
business, is that the idea that privatization is the
solution to all our problems is nothing but an
ugly lie! Privatization is not a way of enhancing
the services delivered to the public—it’s a way
of letting businesses fill their pockets. It lets the
private sector feed like a parasite off our public
services, and we absolutely must continue our
battle against it.
Toward this end, the Federation has just
established a new working committee whose
tasks will include examining the foundations
of Quebec’s institutions. This committee’s research will give us a closer look at Quebec’s
health and social services system and the various forms of privatization that are taking place
within it. Armed with good information, we can
continue our determined struggle to promote
and preserve our public services. By doing
so, we will also be fighting back against collusion, reducing social inequality, and improving
public health!
MYTHS TO BE DEBUNKED
The public debt
is now so large that we must
cut government spending
and make paying back this
debt a government priority.
THE MYTH:
THE REALITY: As reported in a post in
the IRIS blog (Les dettes souveraines : légitimes ou illégitimes ?) public debt has in fact
grown substantially in recent decades, all because of “[translation] speculation, higher interest rates paid by governments when agencies
lower their credit ratings, costs incurred by
governments to bail out banks and other large
corporations, lax government attitudes toward
tax evasion, and tax cuts to corporations and
society’s wealthiest individuals”. The public
debt of the richest countries rose from 40%
of GDP in 1980 to 72% in 2000 and 111%
in 2012.
THE MYTH: There are not
enough rich people in Quebec
to tax them more heavily.
THE REALITY: According to another IRIS
blog post (Les riches sont-ils en danger ?),
“[translation] The richest 1.5% in our society
receive 12.7% of its income and pay 21% of
its taxes, which represents 15.1% of their income. Can these taxpayers afford to pay more?
Probably, because their disposable income is
still very high, even after taxes. This is the question that matters, not how many rich people
there are.”
In the next issue, some
more myths about the
health-care system.
Independent living insurance:
we have to be on the alert
We
all know
that Québec’s
population
is aging. du
A growing
ofplus
elderly
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en
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ices.
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system
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originally
to handle
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et requerront
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and
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This isrequis
the background
for the
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en place Réjean
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What
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aulong-term
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ment
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le Danemark.
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the
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mise en
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the
projected
investments
in long-term
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development
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titre une très
bonne nouvelle
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les investissements
of
home support
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êtreOn-going
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Since
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ne devra
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se faire
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to fund
the
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de places
en CHSLD
Québec
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development
of home
care and services
wouldpas
be opportun
a bad move.
Hébert
les besoins sont
en croissance,
il ne serait
de Minister
fermer des
lits
has
himself agreed
this stance
in a number
of SAD.
his public
comments.
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d’hébergement
pourwith
financer
le développement
des
Le ministre
Hébert
is
thatàCSSSs
be plusieurs
tempted tointerventions
fund home care
and services
seclear,
ralliaitthough,
d’ailleurs
cet aviswill
dans
publiques
qu’il a
by
closing
residential
careque
beds,
is now
being
down
the CSSS
du
faites.
Toutefois,
il est clair
desas
CSSS
seront
tentés
deby
financer
les SAD
Kamouraska.
short,
we have tocomme
make sure
theactuellement
minister honours
his
en fermant desInlits
d’hébergement,
c’estthat
le cas
au CSSS
commitments
and
Peter s’assurer
to pay Paul.
du Kamouraska.
Endoesn’t
somme,rob
il faudra
que le ministre respectera ses
engagements
et
qu’on
ne
déshabille
pas
Paul
pour
habiller Jean.
1. OECD, Health at glance 2011, 2012.
2. Réjean Hébert, Financer les services autrement, 2011.
3. Stéphane Paquin and Alain Desjourdy, Réforme de la santé pour faire face au vieillissement : la Suède
en exemple, 2012.
The FSSS has reaffirmed its presence in
the Coalition solidarité santé (health solidarity coalition). This coalition includes union
organizations and community groups as well. It
gives us the opportunity not only to exchange
information about the health and social services
system, but also to join forces with other organizations and fight our battles together. The
Coalition is leading the struggle to abolish
Quebec’s health tax and campaigning for entirely public prescription drug insurance. For
more details: www.cssante.com.
The organization Médecins québécois
pour le régime public (MQRP – Quebec
physicians for the public system) is supporting
Quebec Health Minister Réjean Hébert’s initiative to abolish extra fees charged by physicians.
In taking this stance, the MQRP says that they
are fighting so that “nobody has to pay such
charges to receive medically necessary care,
which is covered by our public health system”.
To see the press release: www.mqrp.qc.ca.
The negotiations between Canada and
Europe to establish a free-trade agreement
continue. The CSN has publicly denounced the
secrecy in which these negotiations are being
conducted, when there is every reason to believe that this agreement will increase the
power of foreign investors at the expense of our
democratic institutions and our sovereign ability
to govern in the public interest. To learn more:
www.csn.qc.ca/web/csn/communique//ap/Comm29-01-2013?p_p_state=maximized.
Researcher Alain Deneault has just published a book about governance, entitled Gouvernance : Le management totalitaire (Montreal,
Lux Éditeur, 2013, 200 pages). In this book, he
traces the origins of the use of this term by government officials and shows how it has come to
misrepresent the basic mission of government.
Since this usage has become more widespread,
there has been more and more pressure to manage government by the methods of private business, whereas in reality our public institutions
must be fundamentally political and democratic.
committed to opting for the creation of a regional service, not service contracts (which
could in the long run pave the way for privatization of the services). Furthermore, the steering committee has confirmed the creation of a
labour-management partnership to carry out
the project.
VPP PROJECTS IN THE REGIONS
Bas Saint-Laurent % The CSSS du
Kamouraska’s closing of the CHSLD ThérèseMartin still looms on the horizon in the region,
even though the December 4 meeting of the
board of directors was told that residents could
stay as long as they wanted. But it now seems
clear that management lied to the meeting,
since its objective is still to close the institution
by September 2013, with the support of Pascal
Bérubé, the PQ minister responsible for the
Bas Saint-Laurent. Furthermore, at the January
22 board of directors meeting, it was impossible for anyone to ask questions about the closing of the CHSLD. The inter-union coalition
intends to speak out more and step up its work
to ensure that the population can have access
to the public service to which it is entitled.
% A battle waged by the FSSS union had
forced management to keep beds in the public
sector at Villa Dubé, in the CSSS des Basques.
Liberal MNA Jean D’Amour is now trying to revisit the issue and have public funds used to
renovate the institution and reopen it as a private operation. The union will be on the alert
for anything management tries to do along
these lines. As you may remember, the CSSS,
with the participation of MNA Jean D’Amour –
a government member at the time – had announced that the building would be sold for the
symbolic amount of one dollar.
Estrie % Institutions in the region are currently examining the possibility of grouping
together services for storing and distributing
health-care supplies. As for all the other projects now being examined as part of the optimization of resources in the Estrie, the public
alternative is the only one being considered.
The project is still being examined, but it would
generate potential savings and improve the
quality of services, without any loss of jobs. As
well, if the institutions decided to go ahead with
the project, the steering committee of the Estrie
regional table of executive directors has already
Laurentides–Lanaudière % As part
of the VPP campaign, the regional assembly
decided last fall to analyse the AS 471 forms
for each institution to highlight “yellow” and
“red” signals for each and see whether there
were common regional trends. We decided to
analyse and use the employer’s data to demonstrate the aberrations that can exist and help
each union make legitimate demands.
A regional committee was set up for this
work. The committee analyses the data for
each institution, with one of the objectives
being to give all the unions in the public sector
a status report on their institution. With the status report in hand, the union can decide what
it wants to focus on in a local battle – for example, supervisory ratios in a department, or
staff shortages in an activity centre, and so on.
The second objective is to analyse each of the
reports to identify what they have in common
and put together a regional file. All the results
will be presented to a regional assembly in
early April, when a regional action plan will be
discussed.
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean % Unions
in this region have been fighting for several
years to oppose plans for privatization and to
safeguard the public nature of services. So far,
though, struggles had been piecemeal, within
the institution concerned, and more often than
now without the framework of a long-term
vision.
To overcome this isolation, exchange information, make regional life more dynamic and
build real bargaining power, the Saguenay–LacSaint-Jean regional assembly set up a regional
VPP committee, with a three-year mandate. As
well as putting together a regional portrait, the
committee will be responsible for seeing that
the VPP campaign achieves its objectives at
the regional level. The regional committee is
composed of the regional vice-president or
secretary/treasurer, the union staff representative assigned to the work and four representatives of unions with an interest in VPP issues.
% As well, as a result of the VPP training, all
the unions in the region are in the process of
developing their VPP work plan. In fact, virtually
all the unions have VPP work in progress in recent months.
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Produced by: FSSS–CSN
Written by: Hubert Forcier,
Philippe Crevier
Illustration by: Boris
Design by: France Tardif