At the July 22nd 2009 Council meeting, after an intense public debate, the plan to establish the Utility passed Council with a vote of 10 to 6.

Eyes now are turned to the province as regulatory changes are needed under the City of Winnipeg Charter Act for the Utility to be created. There is also hope that the province will bring in some sort of accountability legislation for Public Private Partnerships (P3’s) which the city is doing more and more of.

However, there is no provincial approval needed at this time to proceed with the selection of a private company to design, build, finance and possibly operate our Waste Water Treatment facilities.

It is clear that there are huge concerns about the implications of giving up full public control of essential city services.

Moving to private financing when it is known that public financing is less expensive is a questionable practice.

At present there is a lack of accountability and transparency as private companies are not required to share the same kind of information as the public sector.

There are also concerns about public control being lost to private for-profit companies who’s primary interest is returning profits to shareholders rather than to taking care of the public interest.

You may have heard in the media that there are three companies on the final short list: Veolia, Black and Veatch, and CH2m Hill.

These three bidders for the wastewater P3 are all huge multinational companies that, while they may have a Canadian branch, are involved in privatization of water throughout the world.

Their track records in Canada and throughout the world ought to be thoroughly examined objectively before Council approves any deal.

Furthermore, the case has not been made that a private partnership of this magnitude regarding such an essential city service will be cheaper, more transparent, or provide better public service.

I have been advised that is expected that City Council will be asked to vote on selecting one of the three corporations for the P3 as soon as this coming January of 2010.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 2:58 pm and is filed under Jenny's eNewsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.