Participants at a lively town hall meeting October 9 in Calgary were clear in their determination to stop the spread of privatization in health care, education and other vital public services.

The Go Public! town hall meeting was organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees and highlighted CUPE’s 2002 Annual Report on Privatization, Cross-Country Sell-Off. The report, which includes a chapter on Calgary, documents the threat that privatization, under funding and international trade deals pose to community control of services and local democracy.

"Calgary is private health care’s boom town. Giving the Health Resource Centre (HRC) the green light as Alberta’s first private hospital is like handing the owners a license to print money on the backs of poor and sick people. We’re here to stop the spread of the deadly privatization virus," said CUPE national president Judy Darcy, who opened the forum and then moderated discussion.

Together the crowd of 150 people put together a recipe of actions to fight the privatization of public services. Christine Burdett, provincial spokesperson for the Friends of Medicare, along with Gillian Steward and Trevor Harrison of the Parkland Institute got the ball rolling with compelling presentations on the politics and economics behind the push to privatization in Alberta.

Burdett pointed out that while the Health Resources Centre is now open, it took the government five years to do it. "Without the voices of all of the people opposed to private health care in Alberta, it would have taken them five minutes," she said.

The discussion moved on to privatization in all sectors and the impact of privatization not just on service delivery and cost but the impact on communities. "Governments have created the market for privatization by starving the public systems of funding," said Trevor Harrison. Harrison pointed out that it is large corporations that take over service delivery, taking their profits out of the community and often out of the country. "Public services are best for communities because the money, the jobs and quality services stay in the community," he said.

Participants discussed ideas such as establishing a "Media Watch" to pressure for fair and truthful media coverage, more political action, using our collective bargaining power and illustrate in concrete terms the powerful benefits of public services.