Monopolies Fail to Deliver
Author:
Maureen Bader
2007/06/20
Two recent court outcomes demonstrate why monopolies fail to serve both taxpayers and consumers of government services like health care and education. In an effort to reduce health costs the Campbell Liberals ripped up contracts with health workers and contracted out jobs to the private sector that paid far less. Similarly, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) organized class action suits against hospital workers and teachers who staged illegal strikes. The CTF class-actions were dropped and the Supreme Court of Canada ruled against the Campbell government's heavy handed approach with the unions. Unfortunately, both these cases addressed a symptom rather than the true problem.
The symptom is monopoly control by the unions of health care (and to a lesser extent education). The problem is a lack of choice for patients.
The previous NDP government, in bed with their biggest financial supporters, the unions, set wages for some health service workers at rates up to 44 per cent higher than equivalent positions in Alberta. If Safeway paid their cashiers 44 per cent more than cashiers at Save On Foods, would it matter Only consumers could - and in fact should - decide. If enough people bought their groceries at Safeway, the company would stay in business. The point is, consumers have a choice.
Should it be any different for health care
Health care is a single-payer monopoly in Canada. It's illegal in Canada for you to spend your after tax dollars on health services (unless you leave the country). If you don't like the price you pay for heath care through your taxes (approximately $3,800 per British Columbian) too bad.
When the Liberals came to office they attempted to rectify this, but instead of addressing the issue of patient choice, they attempted to tinker with the monopoly by reducing wage rates and contracting out services. The unions and the court didn't take kindly to reneging on contractual obligations -- ridiculous as those obligations may have been.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation followed a similar line when this same health union (and later teachers) walked off the job shutting down hospitals across the province for four days in 2004, resulting in the cancellation of 6,000 surgeries and 19,000 diagnostic procedures. The CTF organized patients in a class action to hold the Hospital Employees Union (HEU) accountable for their illegal actions.
Before the CTF's case, unions could not be sued by third parties. On behalf of a group of patients, the CTF went to the Labour Relations Board (LRB) and won permission to sue. The HEU tried to spend the CTF into submission by appealing twice. Not only did the CTF win the right to sue in the BC Supreme Court, but the HEU had to reimburse the CTF its court costs.
However, after almost two years the suit lost steam with patients losing interest and - not surprisingly - no one stepping forward to testify against the powerful union. The same fate unfolded against a similar suit organized against teachers for their illegal strike in 2005.
The lesson Instead of trying to break the union's monopoly action with a monopoly reaction, it's time to open up the system to competition in the same way we buy food, clothing, transportation and most insurance.
Government-run hospitals paying workers nearly $20 an hour to mop floors and fold laundry while wait lists mount may well be a fact of life. But should providing patients no alternatives to this system be the law It is not the law in the province of Quebec, where the courts ruled that patients having no alternative to the state-run monopoly is a violation of human rights. The same law should apply in the rest of Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the Campbell government can not break union contracts; it did not say that patients and taxpayers must wrestle with a monopoly in which those same unions reign supreme.