Article Summary: 'Like Water For Profit'

“LIKE WATER FOR PROFIT” SUMMARY

“LIKE WATER FOR PROFIT” SUMMARY

In the article “Like water for profit”, by Diane Halen-Sukra, she discusses the looming importance of the campaigns surrounding the privatization of water. The article discusses how the government, and private companies are looking to privatize public water systems in municipalities around Canada. Which at the very center from a citizen standpoint is a horrific thing as essentially they are looking for take a human necessity and use it for their profit. The article moves on to discuss how there have been many attempts to privatize municipal water systems throughout Canada, and all have failed thus far. With private companies looking for the perfect target, to help
Where they quickly gained momentum through more favourable synonyms such as “alternative service delivery”, and “public privatepartnerships, and became known as “Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships”. They quickly managed to get their hands on a couple communities that were hurting for tax dollars, and implemented their privatization systems. Where the projects were disastrous and short-lived. Despite the many failures, these organizations managed to carry on as every time one of their projects ended in failure they managed to find a way to transfer the costs to the municipalities, and public. Before many people realized, government funding was given to the advertisement of privatization of public water systems. Continued with the Harper government where “PPP Canada” was created with a massive budget to further the advertisement of these corporations. That is where the corporations shifted focus from finding any municipality willing to give this privatization a try, and move towards one like quoted at the end of the first paragraph. A municipality that could be manipulated easily, and be a proven success to further their privatization movement. This is where the communities of Abbotsford, and Mission, B.C., come into
That was when the community decided to fight back to water privatization giants. Within only two weeks time the Mission community was able to quickly turn over the city council’s vote to veto the project, but the real hurdle was the Abbotsford council. Unanimously the council voted to keep the project running, which gave the citizens of Abbotsford an ultimatum. Either turn around the voting during the upcoming November referendum, or face the fact that their municipal water supply will be privatized to a corporation. Organizing quickly, the citizens of Abbotsford started campaigning to the greater Abbotsford population looking for any vote they could get. With the easy to understand slogan “Water is for life, not for profit” the residents committed to overturning this project approached anyone regardless of any job, religion or political affiliation they might have had. Despite the big marketing campaign the city initiated to sell the Stave lake privatization, the general population was becoming fed up with the misinformation that was surrounding this entire project. The outlook further worsened for the pro-privatization side when many political figures starting making mad claims that Abbotsford would run out of water, and therefore that would pose a huge fire hazard for the