Accountability railroaded by Ottawa privatization scheme

Two Ottawa ‘public-private partnership’ projects have been approved by councilors without them being able to see the details. The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) reports that “the need for public services to be accountable to the public took a back seat to ‘commercial confidentiality’ when Ottawa city council approved 2 P3 privatization schemes to extend rail lines. Even though there are significant problems with a P3 privatization scheme for the city’s first light rail line, city councillors were told they didn’t even need to know if bidders met technical requirements. The 2 P3 privatization schemes will cost at least $4.7 billion, and councillors have had very little time to delay the project. Councillors with unanswered questions were told that even delaying the decision by 2 weeks wasn’t possible.” Meanwhile, SNC-Lavalin, which is implicated in the national political controversy threatening to bring down Prime Minister Trudeau, has just been awarded another P3 contract.