The Creeping Conflicts of Corporate Contracts

With the ArriveCan app issues materializing in recent weeks, it looks like the Liberals will be taking another hit for so-called bureaucratic incompetency that is manipulated by questionable corporate behaviour.

We’ve seen it so many times in the last few decades, it’s truly impossible to keep track of the borderline criminal billing that comes at the expense of the public taxpayer.

Think about Ottawa’s relationship with the installation of the light rail transit program. Billions of dollars have been flushed into the pockets of private investors and builders that have failed deliver against their promises.

In Ontario, Shopper’s Drug Mart has been billing the public for phone calls to patients.

In the eastern provinces, few ships have been built under the massive subsidies to Irving shipbuilding and yet the prorgrams continue.

In the west, the bills for a useless tar pipeline continue to pile up.

These are just a few small examples of billions and billions of dollars being transferred from public pockets to those of private shareholders. They’re the tip of the iceberg when you consider just how much the corporate sector leeches off the public teat.

When are we going to learn our lessons?

Why do we continue to blame a population of politicians for the corruption of corporations?

What options do we in the public actually have when it comes to expecting our dollars to be spent efficiently?

If there’s an investigation, shouldn’t it be an exploration of over-billing and underdelivery of services by corporate services at the expense of the public? Shouldn’t we take this opportunity to shame companies that treat public finance like their own personal retirement program?