Why are we selling off the impressive public enterprises we often battled as a nation to create?
In the early 1900s, thousands of Canadians
battled wealthy interests, winning control of Niagara Falls and creating a public power company.
Another popular movement succeeded in creating Canada’s public broadcasting system to counter American dominance of the airwaves.
And a Canadian doctor established a publicly
owned laboratory that saved countless lives by producing affordable medications, contributing
to medical breakthroughs and helping to eradicate smallpox throughout the world.
But in recent decades, we have allowed
our inspiring public enterprises to be privatized
and our vital public programs downsized,
leaving us increasingly dominated by the forces
of private greed that rule the marketplace.
In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda
McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization,
which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple
with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere.
