• ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    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.

    • Prewash_Required
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      11 months ago

      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.