Elizabeth Brubaker is the executive director of Environment Probe, a Toronto-based environmental think-tank. Brubaker has spoken and written extensively on water – including its pricing, allocation, regulation, and quality – during the last two decades. She has also participated in a number of regulatory hearings regarding water, including the Demand-Supply Plan Hearing in the early 1990s (the environmental assessment of Ontario Hydro’s nuclear and hydroelectric expansion plans) and the Walkerton Inquiry, for which she prepared a study on water utility privatization.

Brubaker is the author of three books: Greener Pastures: Decentralizing the Regulation of Agricultural Pollution (2007), Liquid Assets: Privatizing and Regulating Canada’s Water Utilities (2002), and Property Rights in the Defence of Nature (1995). She has contributed chapters to 13 other books published in five countries. She has also written extensively in the popular press about water, sewage pollution, agriculture, fisheries, endangered species protection, the siting of controversial facilities, and other environmental issues.

Environment Probe is a division of Energy Probe Research Foundation, one of Canada’s leading environmental and public policy research institutes. Established in 1980, the foundation is often viewed as a maverick, taking positions that are sometimes out of step with other citizens’ groups. The foundation has always championed market mechanisms and sound, democratic processes to protect consumers and the environment. Liquid Assets – exploring the promise of water utility privatization within a strict regulatory environment – continued that tradition.

Contact Elizabeth Brubaker by telephone: (416) 964-9223 ext. 232
or by e-mail: ElizabethBrubaker[at]nextcity[dot]com