To the editor,
Re: Public works should be privatized, Letters, Aug. 21.
The letter writer proposed privatizing the city’s public works to “save taxpayer dollars.” Apparently, by allowing private contractors to provide basic municipal services (like garbage collection, water main maintenance, snow removal, and road works) these services will no longer have costs: the letter-writer claims the city won’t be paying for wages, vehicles, gas, equipment, or anything else.
Seriously: privatizing basic services never works. It drives costs up because the city still pays for the project plus a little extra on top so the owner can maintain a healthy profit margin, drives down the quality of the work down as firms bid to do worse jobs at lower prices, and destroys secure and well-paying union jobs in favour of lower-paid and more precarious work. The only people who win are the owners of contracting firms; the rest of us end up paying more for less.
Government-provided services aren’t perfect but the notion that the market will do a better job is plainly a myth. Push against the AAP, push against risky loans, whatever, but stop suggesting we privatize the things that make our city function. It doesn’t work.
B. Zargarian, Nanaimo
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