Editor:
Some of us want seniors to be cared for in a publicly operated facility where their care is less likely to be compromised by the desire to make a profit off them. Some of us want decent-paying jobs, and the individuals who work at them, to remain in our community. We are now accused, by VCH chair Kip Woodward, of being under the sway of an “ideology.”
Does he believe that the proposed privatization of local seniors’ care has, itself, nothing to do with ideology – a right-wing ideology that has so dominated our society in recent decades that it is now accepted as the status quo? Why is the status quo seldom recognized as “political” but protest against it gets labels like “ideology?”
We’ve repeatedly witnessed the way the privatization of public services has resulted in a deterioration of both service quality and employee working conditions, affecting many average citizens.
Interesting that Mr. Woodward claims the new seniors facility will be unionized while Mary McDougall, president of Trellis, tells a different story. She says that employees will have to re-certify if they want a union and that Trellis “isn’t guaranteeing anyone a job.” I have a hunch that being an active union member just might be a barrier to being re-hired at the new facility and that staff members may be chosen on the basis of their being desperate for work and afraid to form a union.
Maybe those of us less than impressed by this process actually are in the grip of an ideology. I’d say that one of the slogans of our ideology is “people before profits.”
Anne Miles, Gibsons
