2y ago

Ford government to pay for Staples retrofit as retailer looks to 'monetize' ServiceOntario

toronto.citynews.ca

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2y ago

Ford government to pay for Staples retrofit as retailer looks to 'monetize' ServiceOntario

toronto.citynews.ca /2024/01/12/ford-government-to-pay-for-staples-serviceontario-retrofit/

11 comments

This is what a conservative majority looks like. Taxpayers paying for public assets to be given to corporations
- Service Ontario already was private, and always has been. I don't approve of this move, but only because it corporatizes a small business model.
  
  I took a little look into this and based on that I think you are correct that Service Ontario was already significantly privatized prior to this move (which I'll admit I wasn't aware of), but it has not always been completely private.
  Here are excerpts from a 2014 post from OPSEU (https://opseu.org/information/general/serviceontario-the-straight-facts/9956/):
  The McGuinty government likes to claim that two-thirds of ServiceOntario is already privatized. While two-thirds of ServiceOntario’s retail counters are privately run, claiming that two-thirds of ServiceOntario is already privatized is a gross oversimplification. This claim ignores the publicly run backbone of the organization. The components of ServiceOntario directly operated by the province include:
  87 public counters across Ontario
  9 contact centers that answer 10 million calls annually
  Online services handling close to 10 million transactions annually
  Mailrooms processing 22 million items annually
  ServiceOntario employs about 2400 people that are direct employees of the province. OPSEU represents approximately 1850 of those employees.
Staples Canada has posted a job opening related to this, one is for a Regional Services Manager-ServiceOntario. The posting says the successful candidate will be responsible for “Monetization of ServiceOntario traffic” and will need to “Drive sales and profit results related to ServiceOntario traffic.” A statement from the premier’s office earlier this week stated that impacted ServiceOntario employees will be given a chance to continue employment with Staples Canada.
The article gets worse the more you read. Not only is the government privatizing a government service, but they're giving it to an American corporation, using canadian taxpayer money to upgrade this corporations storefronts, and the corporation is turning the well payed government position into a crappy retail job.
Please don't let Ford do this to my healthcare.
- I hate to break it to you but ServiceOntario was always private. The vast majority of serviceontario locations were in effect small businesses with one person designated as the government agent. Been that way for at least 50 years. Those people working at those offices are not government employees, not members of a union and most certainly not well paid. They are just employees of a small business, no different than someone that works at a bar or a restaurant, other than having to know a lot of government rules and processes.
  So what the government is doing is corpratizing what used to be a moderately profitable small business.
  I should also add that those small business owners had to pay all the costs of the business including the initial renovations to meet government requirements. So that definitely is a case of corporate welfare for Staples.
  Source: I worked at various Service Ontario locations before it was branded that way, for 15 years or so.
- Already did that to your healthcare
- I guess this is what he meant by "Open for business"; the whole fucking province is being sold off piecemeal.
  
  Worse than the last Con government or on par?
Which of his family members works for staples and needs a free renovation?
Hooray for corporate handouts and corporate welfare!
That said, there is a spot in Vancouver with two Canada Posts, 150 metres apart, with one in a drug store and one on its own. The standalone one is open 9-5 only from Monday to Friday, and the other one is open til 9 on Weekdays and til 5 on weekends so it is indeed a little easier to access.

11 comments