ARC is our new MCFD

Think about it. But instead of a provincial ministry subcontracting to various agencies, it’ll be a private for-profit company subcontracting to various agencies. That’s not progress.

Right now, we can petition our MLAs to directly force the will of MCFD. How will we do that with ARC? They’re not elected. They’re not even public. We won’t know what’s going on behind closed doors. There won’t even be a board drawn from the community for oversight. It’ll be a fully privatized black hole. We’ll still be able to petition our MLAs, but the only real control MCFD will have over ARC will be during contract review. And once ARC is entrenched, there will be so much bureaucratic inertia that it would take a massive scandal or egregious failure for them to be removed, at which point we’ll have this mess all over again as they RFP the next operator.

So what this is, really, is MCFD abdicating their duty. Now they don’t have to be as responsive to citizens. Now they don’t have to manage a bunch of contracts. Their lives just got way simpler if only those pesky families would just shut up and roll over. Does ARC know what they’re in for? It won’t be easy. Not excited for a drop in service quality as ARC’s administrative costs skyrocket. There’s a reason why MCFD is so excited to pass the buck.