This book, released on November 6, 2002, calls for the privatization of Canadian water utilities as they have "not served Canadians well, are underfunded, badly operated, and ineffectively regulated". Brubaker, an environ-mentalist, states that "hundreds of municipal systems threaten public health and the environment."
Privatization of harbour cleanup way to go
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Elizabeth Brubaker has some encouraging news for people who dream of once again being able to safely swim in Halifax Harbour or the Northwest Arm.
Privatization went wrong from start
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Elizabeth Brubaker says private firms can provide water and sewers, but are failing here.
Privatize water utilities: lobbyist
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Cities like Saint John faced with spending millions of dollars to overhaul aging water systems might want to consider privatizing the service. Elizabeth Brubaker, executive-director of Environment Probe, has just written a book titled Liquid Assets: Privatizing and Regulating Canada’s Water Utilities.
From sea to slimy sea
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For three days in September, a mechanical failure at Winnipeg’s largest sewage treatment plant sent the waste from 370,000 people spewing, untreated, into the Red River. The putrid mixture of human, household, and industrial wastewater poured into the river at the rate of 230,000 cubic metres a day, poisoning the water, threatening fish, creating a stench, and alarming downstream residents who feared that the contamination could seep into their wells.
Liquid Assets: Privatizing and Regulating Canada’s Water Utilities
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By Elizabeth Brubaker
This book argues that public provision of water and wastewater services has not served Canadians well. Based on successes in other jurisdictions, it calls for the privatization of utilities and examines the conditions — such as competition, effective regulation, legal liability, and union support — necessary to make privatization work.
Published in 2002 by the University of Toronto’s Centre for Public Management.
Unsafe water act
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When the Ontario government received the final report of the Walkerton Inquiry in May, it promised to take action on each of Commissioner Dennis O’Connor’s recommendations. Tuesday, as part of that promise, Environment Minister Chris Stockwell introduced a Safe Drinking Water Act.
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New plants and tough water regulations
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How much longer will we tolerate unsafe drinking water and polluted waterways? When will we crack down on industrial polluters – the chief culprits in many jurisdictions? And when will we clean up the sewage pollution that has become a national disgrace and an international black eye? It is "perhaps Canada’s ugliest environmental secret," with "pollution on a scale unseen outside the Third World," reported the Boston Globe. And yet our governments remain unconscionably complacent and indifferent to the need for immediate action.
Toronto group’s affiliates again criticize farm subsidies
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"Subsidizing farmers has backfired in Canada," says Lawrence Solomon, one of the authors of a report released last week by the Urban Renaissance institute, which is a division of Toronto environmental group Energy Probe. Energy Probe is also affiliated with Environment Probe, an organization which recently sent out a fundraising letter slamming Ontario’s farmers for polluting the environment, living off the avails of subsidies, and hiding behind exemptions in environmental protection laws.
Water, water everywhere
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Local environmentalists are sparring over an upcoming city council debate on the future management of Toronto’s water system. The conflict features increasingly polarized arguments about proposals for the system’s ownership and operation, with some claiming the city is on its way to selling off its water supply.
Farmers slammed in environmental group’s fundraising letter
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A Toronto-based environmental group has sent out fundraising letters to people who supported it and its partner organizations in the past, criticizing Ontario’s farmers for "threaten(ing) both human health and the environment," for "enjoy(ing) special status under the law," and for accepting economic subsidies which "discriminat(e) against responsible small-scale farms."
Restoring the family farm to economic and environmental sustainability
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"Treat farming like any other industry and clean it up, inquiry urged." So read the headline of a Toronto Star article about one of our presentations to the Walkerton Inquiry. Our approach was considered newsworthy, but it shouldn’t have been. After all, isn’t it just common sense that we need to start cracking down on pollution from farms?
Lessons From Walkerton
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Almost two years have passed since contaminated drinking water killed seven people and made 2,300 ill in Walkerton, Ontario. The tragedy called attention to severe deficiencies in water systems all across Canada. Consumers have been deluged with reports of their utilities’ failures to comply with regulations and to make desperately needed capital improvements.
Water hysteria
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They were all wet before and they are all wet again. Under the banner of Water Watch, CUPE and the Council of Canadians are turning their attention to keeping the private sector out of Toronto’s water and wastewater systems. Their arguments are as specious as ever.
No more Walkertons
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The headline of Ian Urquhart’s front-page article told readers of Toronto’s Saturday Star all he wanted them to believe about the Walkerton water tragedy: Disaster Flowed from Ideology. Mr. Urquhart called Justice Dennis O’Connor’s report on the causes of the tragedy a "stinging indictment of the Harris government and its neo-conservative agenda," explaining that "the Tories’ determination to cut spending and red tape laid the groundwork for what happened in May, 2000."
Lessons Learned from Walkerton
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A speech to the Canadian Council for Public-Private Partnerships’s Ninth Annual Conference, held in Toronto, Ontario, on November 27, 2001.
Making Canada’s drinking water safe
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I write to you during a time of terrible insecurity. Since September 11th, we have had to confront our vulnerability on so many levels. We have feared for the safety of our communities. We have lost our casual confidence in the very air that we breathe. We have become painfully aware that much of our security rests upon a tissue of trust and cooperation – one that is delicate and, once torn, difficult to repair.
Privatized water ‘not solution’
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Turning Ontario’s drinking water operations over to private hands in an attempt to fix the ills in the system would be tragic, the Walkerton inquiry was told yesterday.
Implications of Private Ownership and Operations
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EPRF’s presentation to the Walkerton Inquiry’s Public Hearing on the Management of Water Providers recommends privatization in order to attract private capital and expertise, encourage efficiency, and enhance accountability.
The Ontario Clean Water Agency: Supplementary Information
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This submission to the Walkerton Inquiry concludes that OCWA is an unaccountable and ineffective agency that works in opposition to the public interest and discourages private sector involvement in the water sector.
Environment Probe 