Spate of Anti-Worker Laws Passed In Quebec
Legault Government's Privatized Restructuring Plans Oppose Modern Nation-Building
Quebec's Legault government continues to adopt measures and laws that put human and natural resources almost directly into the hands of large private interests. This is not happening without great opposition from the people of Quebec. They are confronting a government which defines autonomy and nationalism as getting rid of everything that prevents it from catering to the demands of narrow private interests and the U.S. war economy.
It is in this context that the recent activities of the Legault government must be examined. On May 23, the National Assembly adopted Bill 51, An Act to modernize the construction industry. On May 9, it tabled Bill 61, An Act enacting the Act respecting Mobilité Infra Québec and amending certain provisions relating to shared transportation, and Bill 62, An Act mainly to diversify the acquisition strategies of public bodies and increase their agility in carrying out infrastructure projects.
The government is attacking construction workers head-on with Bill 51, imposing greater labour mobility, increasing the versatility of workers, and facilitating and increasing the hiring of untrained workers and undermining safety standards on construction sites. “Versatility” means that journeymen in many trades can be required to perform tasks “related to those covered by their competency certificate” but which are not included in their competency certificate and job description.
With Bills 61 and 62 on infrastructure projects, the government opens the door wide to greater privatization in the awarding of public infrastructure projects.
Bill 61 establishes Mobilité Infra Québec, providing it with sole jurisdiction over complex transportation projects, which the government has entrusted it with planning or implementing. The legislation allows Mobilité Infra Québec, among other things, to acquire -- by mutual agreement or expropriation -- the buildings that it deems necessary within the framework of its mission, on its own account or on behalf of the government, a local municipality, a public transport company, the Metropolitan Transport Network or the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority. All of this is within the context of integrating transportation, communications, energy and security corridors across North America, i.e. integrating Mexico and Canada into the U.S. war economy.
In its Bill 62, the Quebec government introduces the concept of "partnership contract" in a "collaborative approach" and with Article 4 deletes the term "public-private" from the Act respecting contracting by public bodies. In fact, the government is not abolishing public-private contracts. It is expanding them with the government itself becoming solely a distributor of capital to private companies which will now be able to participate in the design, construction, financing, maintenance and operation of public infrastructure. In addition, the bill establishes the sharing of risks and responsibilities between the government and the private sector for financing, maintenance and operation. The mantra for this collaborative approach is the sharing of know-how, innovative solutions, and best approaches.
This "new way of doing things" already exists. It has been shown that the private multinational consulting firm McKinsey participated in setting up the Canada Infrastructure Bank, while a former McKinsey partner ended up as CEO of this bank to offer contracts to McKinsey.[1]
Similarly, McKinsey already has an attentive ear among certain of Quebec's state-owned companies, including Hydro-Québec which has paid millions of dollars to McKinsey to help it manage its dams.[2] The Quebec Ministry of Health used their services during the COVID pandemic, as did the Quebec Ministry of the Economy.[3][4][5]
Bill 62 provides for the sharing of risks, gains and losses, possible contracts with consortia, and over-the-counter contracts outside of the public tender process. According to data produced by the Secretariat of the Treasury Board, the use of over-the-counter agreements has increased by 30 per cent over the last three years. In comparison, the use of public tenders increased by only eight per cent during the same period. This creates situations where companies may decide not to participate in calls for tender, instead awaiting recourse to private tender.
These contracts allow private interests to enter into agreements, without publication of a notice of intent, in cases where no bid compliant with the call for tender has been submitted. Over-the-counter agreements may be entered into whether or not the contract meets the need expressed in the call for tender or whether or not the successful tenderer meets the requirements of the call.
In its brief, the Public Procurement Authority underlines: "[T]his way of doing things could have the insidious nature that companies would not bid on contracts and instead wait to receive an invitation to conclude a contract by mutual agreement, particularly for regions where there is already little competition. The production costs could therefore be higher than anticipated when the call for tenders are launched." Consortia can be created to take advantage of this situation.
This brings to mind the Charbonneau Commission of Inquiry into the awarding and management of public contracts in the construction industry. Its report, published nine years ago, revealed the existence of systems of corruption and collusion among those who control the sector. The official mandate of the Charbonneau Commission, created in 2011, was to eradicate collusion and corruption in the awarding of public contracts in construction, to reveal possible links between this corruption and the financing of political parties and the possible infiltration of the construction industry by organized crime.
One of the report's recommendations was to ensure better development of internal construction expertise, which, among other things, has now been thrown in the trash. Far from eliminating corruption, the cartel parties and government and its ministers have taken over acting as organized crime using their positions of power and privilege to act with impunity to pay the rich and integrate Quebec into the U.S. war aims.
This also brings to mind the secret deals surrounding SNC-Lavalin which showed that it is the workers of Quebec and Canada who bear the brunt of the corruption and collaboration of large companies and the state.
To get away with its corrupt schemes to pay the rich, the government presents the simplistic thesis that the problems with infrastructure projects are due to delays and high costs caused by the workers' insistence that wages, working conditions and safety measures including training must be maintained. The solution, it says is to collaborate for the greater good and eliminate these problems. On the one hand, they say they need more flexibility, mobility and versatility on the part of workers, who are disposable anyway. On the other hand, they say they now need partnership contracts with a collaborative approach which will resolve the problems of delays and high costs.
It is clear that the government is pushing further its neo-liberal plan of making all the human, material and natural resources of society available to narrow private interests in the name of the speed needed at lower cost. This is supposed to give rise to beneficial outcomes for the people.
Quebeckers are not fooled by the sagas of numerous public infrastructure projects, with their studies, emergencies, non-emergencies, buck-passing, and consultations with major experts, which have ended up costing them double or triple the initial projection. The destruction of all human potential and human expertise in Quebec's public sector is the result of the Quebec government's agenda to serve the ambitions of the most powerful oligarchs, in contradiction with the interests of the people.
The people of Quebec systematically oppose privatization in health care, education and all public sectors of the economy, because it is done to destroy everything related to the public domain and hand it over -- on a silver platter -- to narrow private interests. When the government raises concerns about speed and cost reduction, no one is deceived. Its concern above all else is the speed with which it wants to respond to the demands of the financial oligarchy to monopolize Quebec's wealth: our electricity, our mines, our roads, our soil. Recent bills and laws concerning Hydro-Québec, energy, and mines, and these last three bills confirm this eagerness.
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 6 - July 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540067.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca