For sure.
When I started politics, it was in the mid 1990s, and it was in the midst of the “common sense revolution”, for those who lived in the province of Ontario. That language is back again, of course in a different form and at a different level of government. The mindset at the time, if you recall, was to privatize everything: “The private sector knows best”. Of course, that led to a great disruption in the workforce. There were all kinds of protests at Queen's Park at that time. It led to morale issues. That line of thought, in terms of public-private partnerships, was the be all and end all, and it went to other levels of government. The federal government adopted that at the time, as well as municipalities. It caused tremendous harm to morale, and it also hit us in terms of costs. I think you've alluded to some of those issues today.
I caught your note on the value-for-money audits that most would want to go through before deciding whether or not they were going to gravitate to the private sector. It's better to know that it's cheaper and that the work is going to be done in a way that conforms with all the policies you have as an organization.
Can you speak to some of the harms that occur when you don't perform value-for-money audits first, prior to contracting out, and some of the morale issues that your members face when those decisions are made without explanation?