By Aurélie Sarrabezolles
Research Director for Canada
On November 1, Finance Minister Morneau gave an economic and fiscal update. The main highlight is the creation of the Canadian Infrastructure Development Bank (CIDB) in order to finance major infrastructure projects. The problem is that the Liberal government is going to fund the bank $15 billion, money which was supposed to be used to finance "socially useful, non-commercial projects like child care or affordable housing to cash-strapped cities", as promised during the 2015 Federal election campaign.
Furthermore, the mandate of the bank is to finance "revenue-generating infrastructure projects" only. The main goal is to "attract private sector capital to public infrastructure projects". In other words, the bank will finance public-private partnerships also called P3s. The IAM did not expect the Federal Government to go that far in involving the private sector in big infrastructure projects. Another major concern is the possibility of airport privatization implied in the update. The IAM is totally opposed to it and will challenge the Liberal government should it decide to go down that path.
As for job creation, the update says "Canadian workers are among the most highly educated and highly skilled workers in the world." And yet, the Liberals want to put in place a new immigration strategy to attract highly skilled immigrants. Let’s focus on our workforce first and make sure that our young workers get a decent job. We want concrete measures to help our young workers. Apprenticeships are part of the foundation of the IAM and any measure enhancing it will be supported. If the government really wants to help low-income workers, then it must act now. The IAM represents thousands of members working at airports across the country who are subject to the growing trend of contract flipping. This needs to end and it is up to the Liberal government to make it stop for the sake of these workers.
As pointed out by Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, "[t]he problem with privatization is that it usually ends up costing consumers more. Various auditors general around the world, including Ontario’s, have made that point when examining public-private partnerships."
The Fighting Machinists will watch closely the actions of this Liberal government to make sure that jobs of our member are not, once again, being put at risk because of a corporate-driven agenda.
