The Council replies: Letters to the editor
Marketing Water (re: Quantum of suspicion (Oct. 3))

October 14, 2009
Winnipeg Free Press
Meera Karunananthan

Bartley Kives cedes that corporations like Bechtel have had devastating impacts on the lives of people whose water supplies they have raided. Yet he fails to acknowledge that what distinguishes a public utility from a private corporation is that a public utility's main objective is to serve the public interest. This will not be the case once Winnipeg turns its utility into a commercially driven corporation accountable, not to the public, but to an arm's-length board of directors whose mandate will be to boost profit margins.

In Europe, such utilities have done so by expanding their markets to developing countries, where they have raised rates and denied services to those who could not afford to pay. Experience with water utilities around the world shows that it is not about who the shareholders are, it is about whether utilities serve people or whether they serve profit.

Meera Karunananthan is the National Water Campaigner for the The Council of Canadians