Editor, The Record:
Open letter to Mayor James Atebe:
First, I would like to congratulate you and your council colleagues who had the good sense to listen to the people of Mission at last Monday’s meeting and to reject the proposed P3 water agreement.
Second, I would like to state that along with the many who spoke at that council meeting opposing this project, I am very strongly opposed to it.
Public water systems in Canada should remain public. There is no way on earth that we should allow any degree of privatization of such a critical resource. Even to consider it is an absurdity.
Let me be clear. I am opposed to any and all public/private partnerships affecting our drinking water supply, not just this particular application.
It is my firm belief that it would be impossible to build in adequate safeguards for such things as availability, reasonable cost, quality of water and maintenance of water systems over the long term. It is also my belief that water being the single most important commodity to life, next to air, that it cannot be entrusted to any private organization and must be the property of each and every person in our society, regardless of age, income or other demographic group.
That district council saw fit to countenance such an application at all makes me wonder just what sort of persons we have on council. To consider such an application is, in my view, scandalous.
Christopher D. Ryan
Mission