Linda McQuaig spoke recently on The Taylor Report, CIUT 89.5 fm, about her new book, The Sport & Prey of Capitalists. Linda’s book is an intriguing and informative exploration of the history of public ownership in Canada, and demolishes the myth that private ownership is always best.
My book is basically the story of privatization … The doctrine that the private sector always does things better – it’s always asserted by the business community with great confidence, but never with any evidence. In fact, there’s no evidence that they always do things better … overall, the evidence is it’s very costly when we turn to them, when we privatize things and hand things over to them. It ends up costing us a fortune … My favorite example is the 407.
Here is what Linda said about GM’s closure of the Oshawa plant: “Rather than shut down this historic plant that was the centre of the automotive industry in Canada, let’s have government take it over and let’s use it to create green production vehicles … which we desperately need as part of a Green New Deal.”
