Communist Party: Winnipeg: Water Utility Privatization a monumental, undemocratic Robbery!

Communist Party of Canada - Manitoba
387 Selkirk Ave., Winnipeg MB R2W 2M3
(204) 586-7824 - cpc-mb@mts.net

For Immediate Release
July 13, 2009

Communist Party: Winnipeg water utility
privatization a monumental, undemocratic robbery

"The plan to privatize Winnipeg's water utility is a monumental robbery that will hike water rates in Winnipeg and create enormous profits for a handful of monopoly speculators who own land outside the perimeter," said Darrell Rankin, Communist Party of Canada - Manitoba leader.

"Mr. Katz is displaying a total contempt of public opinion and democracy," said Rankin. "The proposal was never an issue in the last civic election. The lack of information and organized public debate until a few weeks ago and the holiday-time vote on the issue show that this deal is being cooked up to benefit a small handful of developers."

"The polite fiction that provincial parties should stay out of civic politics needs to be set aside on an issue of this magnitude and urgency. The silence or action of other provincial parties on this issue can do much to change the outcome of the vote in City Council on July 22."

The position of the Communist Party on this issue is as follows:

1. Winnipeg's water utility must stay publicly-owned.
2. The water utility must not be made into a corporation where it would be removed from democratic control and scrutiny.
3. Hold an emergency session of the Manitoba Legislature to prevent any privatization or corporate model of water utilities at the civic level.
4. It is crucial for public-minded citizens and organizations to protest the proposal and vow to defeat any City Councilor voting in favour of the measure.
5. The public interest demands full disclosure about the holdings and names of the largest private land speculators outside of Winnipeg, including the options they own. A similar survey was completed for many Canadian cities in the 1970s revealing a high level of concentration of land in the hands of a few corporate speculators.
6. All provincial political parties need to set out their view about this critical proposal.

"People need to have far more time to consider the full facts about the proposal, including the sorry record of similar privatizations in other parts of the world," said Rankin. "People must have all the facts about such an enormous change to an essential public service."

"The proposal would be a disaster on many levels. It would impose hardship on the large majority of people in Winnipeg; it would curb development within Winnipeg and destroy valuable agricultural land outside the perimeter; it would make a mockery of any regional planning; it would push Winnipeg further along the failed neo-liberal path of privatization and unregulated "growth," a path that has led to the present global economic crisis."

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Information: Darrell Rankin 586-7824; 792-3371 cell