The Greater Victoria Water Watch Coalition urges the Capital Regional District to recall, and remind the provincial and federal governments of the many meetings at which we and other groups and individuals spoke out against a public-private-partnership (P3) approach to this project.
We also urge you not to bow to senior level government pressures in favour of a P3, and to reject any grants from them conditional upon a P3.
If the senior level governments continue to mandate the project, then they must be made to understand local conditions and concerns, and that local taxpayers will not be bullied by them.
We were pleased that the CRD business plan submitted to the provincial government called for a maximum of 20 per cent P3. Now we are dismayed that senior governments have paid no heed to your considered plan.
Do our provincial and federal politicians not realize that we understand that in the end, the users – the taxed public – will pay far more if we go the P3 route?
There is a string of unsuccessful P3 projects in this province and country, and literally around the world.
What the provincial and federal governments are doing is an attempt to make them look good now while loading the costs on to future generations through multi-decade P3 agreements, with any profits generated by the system going to corporations.
Nancy Stuart
Saanich
