Anti-Capitalist Convergence

PPP? Public-Private Partnerships:
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) in their current form were first developed in Great Britain as "private finance initiative" (PFI). Introduced in 1992, PFIs today encompass most public service infrastructure, including hospitals, the defence/security sectors, education, water and waste management, the construction of office space, housing and prison, as well as transportation (source: www.minei.gouv.fr). The core of the Liberal argument lies in the idea that private enterprises would be more efficient and cost-effective than public ones. First, that's rarely true. Second, it is based on one major detail: in the public sector, employees usually have better working conditions. The public-private partnership scam works like this: the government goes into debt while the corporations pay no taxes. The workers are forced to see their working conditions and salary diminished so that the government doesn't have to increase taxes to maintain the mystical budget equilibrium. In other word, we're getting robbed! They steal the money and we reimburse it! In Quebec
In October 2004, Pierre Lefebvre was in charge of a parliamentary commission concerning PPPs. On August 30th, M. Lefebvre became associate secretary of the Conseil du Trésor. Until then, he was president of "Lefebvre & Associates", a consulting firm in public-private partnerships. They are predicting that a new state-independent agency regulating PPPs will be operational at the beginning of 2005. The first targets of this badly camouflaged privatization have practically already been reached. The Law officializing the resort to PPPs hasn't been passed yet, but enterprises are ready: the Montreal engineering firm Dessau-Soprin recently acquired Gestion Transidev, a enterprise specialized in consulting in public transit, with the goal to position itself strategically for eventual PPPs in this sector. This is one example amongst many. To be continued

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