The Ontario Public Service Union has announced the fight to save Grey Gables long-term care home in Markdale is far from over.
Last week at a committee of the whole meeting, ten Grey County councilors voted to close the facility and sell it to a private operator. All of the beds would be transferred to a new home to be built in Durham.
The committee vote still needs a formal county council vote, which is set for June 8.
OPSEU President Warren Smokey Thomas says building a new facility is an expensive undertaking.
"It costs a lot of money to build a new facility, and will cost even more if it's built as a public-private partnership [P3]," says OPSEU President Warren Smokey Thomas. "The government's ongoing experiment with P3s, or as I like to call them, 'Profits in Private Pockets,' is a total boondoggle. Amalgamations and P3s are not only costly, they are often way over budget. And somehow the anticipated savings never seem to materialize."
He says amalgamations, and private public partnerships are costly and often go way over budget , with projected savings never materializing.
"There is no guarantee that council's plan, which stretches years into the future, will save any money at all," he adds. "There are simply too many variables at play."
Thomas says there is no guarantee that council's long term plan will save any money.
The union encourages members and residents to contact local councilors to make their concerns heard.
OPSEU says the Grey County councilors who voted in favour of the privatization plan include: Mayor Alan Barfoot and Deputy Mayor Dwight Burley from Georgian Bluffs; Mayor Barb Clumpus from Meaford; Mayor Ian Boddy and Deputy Mayor Arlene Wright from Owen Sound; Mayor Bob Pringle from Chatsworth; Mayor Sue Paterson and Deputy Mayor Selwyn Hicks of Hanover; and Mayor Kevin Eccles and Deputy Mayor John Bell of West Grey.
