Every week, OPSEU’s We Own It campaign publishes a newsletter called The We Own It Weekly. It’s a round-up of news and information about the growing movement to protect communities from privatization.
To receive the newsletter directly, you can sign up for it on the We Own It website. You can also keep in touch with the campaign through its Facebook page and Twitter feed.
And here’s the latest issue:
Where do your candidates stand?
It’s less than two weeks to the election on June 7. Do you know where your candidates stand on privatization?
To help answer that question, we’ve developed a survey that we’ve asked all the candidates to fill out. It’s short and easy: just five questions.
To encourage the candidates in your riding to complete the survey:
- Click here to download a printable version of the survey that you can keep by your front door — when a candidate comes knocking, ask them to fill it out. Once a candidate has filled out the survey, scan it or take a snapshot of it, and send it to us at [email protected]
- Click here if you’d like to send the survey to your candidates via email.
Once we start receiving responses from the candidates, we’ll publish the results on our website.
Invite your friends, family, and co-workers to join us!
In the news
Evidence is clear: alcohol in corner stores is a health danger
The Toronto Star reports that people who’ve studied the issue are saying privatizing alcohol sales to more grocery stores and convenience stores will cause an increase in health problems and increased health care costs.
“If you have any recognition about the heath issues around liquor you’d be crazy to put it into private convenience stores and increase its physical access under a profit motive,” said Greg Flanagan, an economist who studied the Alberta deregulation of retail alcohol sales.
Dr. Robert Mann, a senior scientist at CAMH, said there is a direct correlation between the availability or accessibility of alcohol and public health and safety issues.
“If more alcohol is made available, consumption increases,” he said, “that leads to more drinking and driving, more alcohol-related deaths and suicides and homicides.”
Mann added that a recent estimate of the cost of alcohol-related harms amounted to more than $3 billion annually. “After tobacco, alcohol is the leading contributing factor to death and injury in Canada,” he said.
Tucson Draws the Line on Prison Privatization
The city of Tucson has passed a resolution banning the use of privatization in its jails and detention centres.
Profit should never be motivation for our justice system,” said Tucson City Council member Regina Romero, who spearheaded passage of the resolution.
Tucson isn’t the first community in the generally Republican state of Arizona to pass a resolution banning prison privatization. Last year, the Pima County Board of Supervisors passed a similar resolution.
We Own It Events
Scarborough town hall to make privatization an election issue
7 p.m. – 9 p.m., Wednesday, May 30, Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto 5183 Sheppard Ave. East, Scarborough