Privatization By Stealth

<blockquote>Hamilton was the first privatized large water utility in Canada. In a country where waterworks historically have been overwhelmingly a public affair — and where most people like it that way — the Hamilton experience was supposed to demonstrate an alternative, free-market model. It was supposed to change public opinion. It has. But not as expected. </blockquote><p>This is the biggest red herring argument I ever see from these privateers (namely, that they are only operating in a free market) that is intended to create some sort impression that they are a benign entity that simply wants to operate within the confines of our economic system. There is no such thing as a market when one of the parties involved does not have the choice not to participate, such as is the case with supplying consumers with water and sewage treatment.<p><p><blockquote>Seven months after taking over operations, the layoffs began. PUMC initially cut 60 of the 128 workers. There were also 19 vacant positions at the waterworks when PUMC took over that were never filled. "The problem with big cities," Stuart Smith explained, "is that they end up with four or five times the number of employees than they really need."</blockquote><p>The second fallacy that privateers always engage in to try to con people into buying their point of view is that they can do the same job for less, generally claiming, as above, that the workers that are already there are superfluous and that public works are some kind of big job creation project. I work in the public sector and i can tell you that our managers hire people as they need them to get the job done as the work expands just as private companies do. There are only two ways these private companies can turn a profit from taking over public services and that is to either fire staff, thereby compromising public safety, or by charging what it would actually cost for them to do a proper job and they will always choose the latter because it generally results in more profit and is better PR (why use them if it will cost the same or more?).<p><p><blockquote>Canadian cities lack a sustainable tax base. They've been hit hard by cutbacks in financial allocations from provincial and federal levels of government. So more and more of them are open to private sector claims that they can breach the gap. 'You don't have the cash and we do,'" Darcy said.</blockquote><p>These private companies' claims to have ready cash for providing these services is a blatant lie. The truth is that they have access to credit; the same credit that any municipality has access to. In fact, these people are merely acting as a middle man, essentially taking their cut in the form of profit to them. In other words, citizens foot the bill for the interest whether it involves public works or private operators. The difference would be that when utililies are operated as a public service the profits, if any, are returned to the consumer either directly or through contributions to the general revenue to run a city. As well, when run as a public service citizens have more say in how the service is operated.

The following is also areport from <a href="http://www.publicintegrity.org/report.aspx?aid=173&sid=100">Center for Public Integrity</a> <p>Privatizing Water: What the European Commission Doesn't Want You to Know By Daniel Politi <p>WASHINGTON, April 7, 2003 — Leaked documents and an exchange of e-mails reveal that the European Union has asked 72 countries to open up their markets to private water companies. <p>The requests came after a period of intense cooperation and consultation between water companies and trade representatives of the European Commission, which is the executive body of the European Union, leading up to the most recent round of World Trade Organization negotiations in 2001. <p>The meetings were scheduled to discuss one of the WTO's flagship accords: The General Agreement on Trade in Services—a set of rules covering international trade in such areas as energy, telecommunications, education, tourism, transportation and water. <p>The new meeting would extend the scope of the original agreement and explore ways of liberalizing trade in services around the world. The idea was straightforward: Members of the WTO would negotiate with each other to make it easier for services and the companies that provide them to move from one country to another. Members of the WTO could list services for which they guaranteed access to foreign suppliers and then request that a member open up markets for which it had not made commitments; foreign companies could then offer to supply the services. The terms of the treaty were negotiated by the governments of WTO member states. Following the negotiations, the European Commission sent out requests for liberalizing services to 109 countries; 72 of those countries were asked to open up their water markets. The requests, which are supposed to be secret, were leaked to the Polaris Institute, a Canadian non-profit advocacy group, which promptly posted the documents online. Until then, no one from the general public had seen them. <p>The following is from the <a href="http://www.polarisinstitute.org/gats/main.html">Polaris Institute</a> <p>Most Favoured Nation status <li>This obligation has the effect of consolidating commercialization wherever it occurs. For example water corporations granted access to public subsidies to enable remote or rural water service delivery entitles all other like service providers to the same terms. Furthermore, government's capacity to disfavour or boycott certain foreign based corporate service providers - but not all foreign service providers because of concerns about the foreign-based corporate service provider's environmental track record, or labour practices could be judged to violate the MFN rule by altering the conditions of competititon. <p>National Treatment means <li>Publicly run utility or service providers would be in direct competition with foreign-based private services corporations. <p>Domestic Regulation means <li>Environmental, health or safety rules that ensure safe service provisions and which may add to the costs of service delivery can be seen as more "burdensome than necessary" and struck down by the WTO. <p>Market Access means <li>Governments must grant foreign-based service corporations unrestricted, irreversible access to their markets. Limits on size, number or percentages of foreign ownership controls are not permitted.

Very interesting comments hoopoe. It makes one wonder if the governments goal is to fleece us.

Yeah. The E.U. sucks, but at least their military is smaller, and much farther away.

Privatization of essential services like water, hydro, health care, and even natural gas should NEVER happen!

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Dave Ruston

Dave, I'm one of the lucky ones.

I don't have hydro, I use about $1.50 a day for gas for my generator, I have no water, so I get it from town where it is tested weekly, I have no plumbing so I can't get flooded out by raw sewage, and I don't have to pay for anything I don't want.

My lights run off batteries that last for 3 weeks, and if I run the charger on them while I'm on the internet or watching TV, then they will last for several years.

So far, privatization is not a problem for me.

The day it becomes a problem, someone is going to go for a ride on the end of my boot.

More of us should think about how we live our lives, and who pays the piper.

I know young families would have a hard time doing what I'm doing, but I know 2 families that are off-grid and using a diesel generator, have all the services they need. (Of course, fuel is still one problem I haven't come to grips with, yet.)

Think outside our way of life, and it does work.

This article shows what we are up against, and we MUST find a way around it, to make it NOT profitable for these private companies to make a living.

(And I pay $78 per year for taxes. Hey, what a hoot !!)



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"Arrogance is unacceptable. Do it to my face, and I will react" - Jim Callaghan

privatization of water really means: monitization of water... Remember our economic system is a form of controlled capitalism. Another example: Kyoto, The monitization of pollution.

As our infrastructure is allowed to decay because there is no political will to spend money on it - privatization will ultimately save us.

Our Soviet-style health 'system' that delivers industrial-style care will collapse if left to gov't because Canada can't afford to keep this Communist experiment going forever.

Before that happens though - the rest of our infrastructure will be sacrificed to keep 'health' afloat - so at least when we are forced to privatize other areas like water delivery we'll have that experience to draw on when we are forced to privatize health.

What a blind stupid unsubstaniated statement. Show one single industry that privatization has saved. Come on now, just one.

Ya, we're seeing in Nova Scotia how piratisation has saved the electricity supply. <p>There's one big thing wrong with the "pirates will save us" crap: at present publicly traded business have a prime directive under the law: maximisation of shareholder returns. Any executive that gets in the way of those returns, by acting on insane thoughts like maybe it'd be nice to have enough linemen around or to not have to run the generators and feeder network at the very fringe of their capacity, faces prosecution. <p>Or so I understand <a href='//amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670889768'><i>The Corporation</i></a> to argue....

One of the best examples of what privitization can do for us, that I can see, is the difference in road maintenance in BC since privitization. It costs more and there are now more fatal accidents in the winter.
When it comes to water, we canadians better be very careful of what we let happen. No matter what, control of our water has to stay in the hands of canadians.
It's probably too late for the energy sector, since a lot of canadian oil companies and hydro electricity companies have become american owned. How are we going to provide adequate energy for canadians when we would not only have to break the rules of nafta but also force american companies to provide for canadians before exporting to americans? Same thing will happen with water. H20 and energy are the most important commodities there are and we are giving them away. Our only real assetts and insurance policies.

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Canada for Canadians

If we don't start a full fledged fight against the ruling class and its minions soon we may well be ruled out. The comments made by the ruling politicians about opening the borders means that companies can bring in people to do our jobs. <p> <p>Go to the <a href="http://www.polarisinstitute.org/gats/main.html">Polaris Institute</a> and scroll down to Lists of services targeted by current negotiations of the GATS rules. Is your profession listed there?

The Corporation was a good movie, but like most anarchist films, was one-sided and offered zero solutions. Most corporations are not big and evil.

Wraun, there's no reason private local or foreign-ownership can't be reversed. It's never too late. That's what they want you to think, but the truth is they're profiteering is a mere government decision away from disappearing.