Comments on ERO Notice 025…

Comments on ERO Notice 025-1098 Corporatizing Water and Wastewater Management

I am commenting on the ERO Notice 025-1098 re creating public corporations to handle water and wastewater in municipalities as proposed in Bill 60 - the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act. I do not agree with this proposal because the way water and wastewater are handled, at the moment, is working just fine. I do not want to see some arms length public corporation handling citizen’s water and wastewater. It appears to this citizen that there will be a lack of public oversight and accountability with a public corporation. That brings to mind the maxim of if it is not broken then why try to repair it?? Water as it is currently regulated has absolutely nothing to do with Fighting Delays that might be holding up Building Homes which this act is trying to address. So, corporatizing water availability and treatment is going to cost citizens like me a lot of money. What’s the point?? The current system is working just fine in all municipalities so it’s ludicrous to think about trying to change it.

There are significant things to consider if the current system is tampered with:

1) moving control of water rates and infrastructure from the elected municipal councils to a corporate board, decision-making becomes more distant and less accountable to local citizens;
2) municipal council meetings are open and transparent - public - but corporate board meetings are private, hence it is more difficult to understand, and or influence choices made about water management;
3) rates and fees would be tied to what makes the water corporation profitable rather than affordable to the average citizen;
4) infrastructure investments may put profit before the concerns of environmental protection and stewardship of municipal water.

The suggested privatization model introduces risks to citizens even if the ownership of same remains in
public hands. In most places where the public utilities have been made into corporate entities, citizens lose the ability to comment, and raise issues about accountability.

Privatizing water services by having a corporation looking after the municipalities water and wastewater management changes incentives and weakens accountability. So, there is no need to do this when the systems, already in place, with all municipalities are working just fine providing citizens with clean, safe, and reliable water infrastructure. This is public - transparent and accountable - for the citizens living in the municipality.

So, please do the following so that changes to the current water system - not broken - are not implemented:

a) seek science-based input from citizens and key stakeholders;
b) this comment consultation is way too short to consider the important matter brought up in it, so it should be much longer than it is;
c) the proposal illustrates a lack of understanding about how current systems are working;
d) it seems that lessons that the Province should have learned from the Walkerton debacle, from several years ago, and the objections by citizens to companies taking excessive amount of groundwater are being ignored and or forgotten;
e) corporatizing water and wastewater management risks the health of citizens, the natural environment, and drinking water sources;
f) as mentioned in b) a too short complete review without proper citizen input creates risk;
g) water belongs to ALL and should not be trifled with by trying to corporatize it as if it were w commodity suitable for the issuance of private shares, and use of private financing;
h) the perfectly good public systems should be left alone because privatization does not work as has been shown the world over and recently in Hamilton.

Right now Ontario citizens already have clean, safe, and affordable water. Water is a basis of municipalities, citizen health, and the natural environment. Water must remain in public hands. It is no commodity. Water is our human right. With togetherness, water can be safeguarded and will be there for future citizens. As our Indigenous brethren have said - Water Is Life.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.