Clean, safe and public water services

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The vast majority of Canadian water and wastewater systems are publicly provided by our municipal governments. Most communities, cities and towns have been providing Canadians access to safe, clean water for drinking and sanitation for decades. Municipalities have developed unprecedented experience and expertise providing these services. And the public continues to recognize this expertise through their unwavering support for the public provision of water.

An Environics poll taken in 2010, showed that 81 per cent of respondents said they trust the public sector more than the private sector to provide drinking water treatment and delivery. A subsequent poll released in March 2011 by the Council of Canadians, showed that 78 per cent of Canadians support a significant increase in spending in federal budgets over the coming years for maintenance and upgrading of water and waste water infrastructure.

The need for new funding for our water infrastructure is pressing in the face of new rules passed by Environment Canada to improve the quality of wastewater being discharged into our oceans, rivers and streams. More than 1,000 water and wastewater facilities may be forced to upgrade their infrastructure without proper resources to do so. With costs expected to exceed $20 billion, a genuine commitment to protecting our source water includes providing the financial resources to implement these important regulations.

First Nations communities also need a significant investment in their community water and wastewater systems. There are currently 49 communities with high risk water facilities and 114 communities under a drinking water advisory. In 2010, the federal government committed only $330 million over two years, to continue the First Nations Water and Wastewater Action Plan to improve access to safe drinking water on reserves.

Public underfunding is intensifying pressure on municipalities and First Nations communities to privatize financing, operations, management and/or maintenance of their water facilities. Further pressure is being exerted by the federal government through PPP Canada Inc. which is looking to both promote and assess public private (P3) water and wastewater partnerships in municipalities.

This pressure to privatize continues in Canada despite well documented failures all over the world. There is a growing trend to bring water services back into public hands. For example:

• The City of Hamilton-Wentworth contracted water services back in-house after 10 years of environmental problems and mismanagement by several private water corporations. Despite the promises of local economic development, new jobs and cost savings, the workforce was cut in half within 18 months, millions of litres of raw sewage spilled into Hamilton Harbour, homes were flooded and major additional costs were incurred. Numerous charges were laid by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment against the contractor for not meeting effluent standards.
• The Paris City Council made water services fully public in January 2010. Water services management in Paris had previously been run by Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux and Veolia Environment as public private partnerships. The private companies involved had almost total control over operations, there was little transparency, and rates more than doubled between 1990 and 2003. According to the president of the city’s new public utility, the €35 million ($47 million CDN) in what used to be corporate profits are now reinvested into the water systems. Water prices have dropped and stabilized, there is greater synergy between water production, distribution and treatment, and the residents of Paris have been able to introduce designated environmental, economic, democratic and social objectives. This had not been possible with the private operators.
• The city of Brussels terminated a contract with Veolia in 2010 after Aquiris, a consortium created in 2001 by Veolia Environment to support a BOT (build own operate transfer) in the city, deliberately dumped the wastewater from 1.1 million people into the river Zenne for 10 days. The chief executive of the regional water authority described this action as equal to “releasing an atomic bomb” into the river. Aquiris took this action while in a dispute with public authorities. One official noted that “whatever the rights and wrongs in the dispute it is hard to imagine that a publicly owned and operated company would have stopped the pumps like this.”

Cornell University researcher Mildred Warner puts it best when she says “the empirical lessons from thousands of local government managers tell a clear and compelling story. Water service is a poor candidate for privatization. There are better alternatives.”

In this context of underfunding, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) may further facilitate the privatization of our municipal water systems. Canada is considering including municipal drinking water and wastewater systems in a proposed trade agreement with the European Union. Veolia Environment and Suez, the largest multinational water corporations in the world, are based in Europe. Each has signed a joint business declaration “in Support of a Canada-EU Trade and Investment Agreement”. If water is included in CETA, it will amount to signing away the public’s right to control its water.

To protect our water, Canada needs a long term infrastructure strategy to support the municipal infrastructure deficit and the new wastewater facilities upgrades.

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