People protest outside the Tendercare Living Centre long-term-care facility in Scarborough, Ont. during the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2020. This LTC home was hit hard by the second wave of COVID-19.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette
Privatization is an idea that — like a zombie —just won’t die. It’s re-emerging with calls to solve the long-term care crisis with for-profit care homes. Evidence refutes the same old arguments.
A worker cuts an electricity pole downed by Hurricane Fiona in Cayey, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 18, 2022.
AP Photo/Stephanie Roja
Hurricane Fiona will set back efforts to restore Puerto Rico that date back five years to Hurricane Maria. Two scholars explain how the island’s weak institutions worsen the impacts of disasters.
Students arrive at Dartmouth High School in Dartmouth, N.S., on Sept. 8, 2020.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
A policy of “choice” for full-time online schooling would weaken public education, erode funding for in-classroom supports and drive those who can afford it to private education.
The USPS is playing a major role in this year’s election.
AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes
The turn to private funding of education reduces the responsibility of governments to adequately fund schools and to ensure all children have access to high-quality education programming.
Alberta Minister of Health Tyler Shandro speaks during a press conference in Calgary on May 29, 2020. The Alberta government is proposing legislation to accelerate approvals of private clinics in order to get more surgeries done.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
Recent Alberta legislation increasing privatization in the health sector risks undermining the public health-care system, and will likely put profits over the public interest.
The US is one of a few countries that still uses private prisons.
AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki
A new study looks at obituaries of private military contractors killed at war. The majority are white men with significant military experience.
In 2017, Saskatchewan’s auditor general showed that a private pay MRI program actually increased wait times for scans rather than the promised reduction. Here, an MRI machine is prepared at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital on May 1, 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
A two-tier, for-profit health-care system will not end “hallway medicine” in Ontario or elsewhere; evidence from around the world shows that private payment increases wait times for the majority.
The president met with veterans in September at a signing ceremony.
Reuters/Mike Segar
The Trump administration is preparing to shift billions in veterans’ health care spending to private providers. Research suggests privatizing essential services comes with a social cost.
Elon Musk changed his mind about privatizing Tesla.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma
The Trump administration wants to privatize more of the federal bureaucracy. New research suggests this can lead to discrimination in essential government services.
Puerto Rico’s power utility, PREPA, has been decimated by years of scarcity and bad management. But will privatizing it really turn the lights back on for Puerto Ricans?
AP Photo/Carlos Giusti
Many Puerto Ricans are happy to see their broke power utility sold off to whoever can get the lights turned back on. But privatizing the island’s energy grid may bring more problems than relief.
Ontarians got a taste of privatization in the 1990s, when the Conservative government of Mike Harris handed over the lucrative Highway 407 toll road in a 99-year lease for a fraction of its value.
Canadian governments aren’t completely selling off major public works, but their embrace of public-private “partnerships” is giving private financiers control of major infrastructure projects.
A detention center in Eloy, Arizona.
AP Photo/Ricardo Arduengo