I received a letter from Water Watch Mission/Abbotsford telling me all the reasons to not support the Stave Lake Project. Their claim to be a grassroots group of the community.
Who are they really?
Water Watch is a national program organized by the Canadian Union of Public Employees, CUPE, and are organized by CUPE all across Canada.
Water Watch are paying for all the signs, TV ads, newspaper ads, mail drops and radio ads. Nowhere in any of the ads does it acknowledge that it is CUPE who is developing the content of the material, or for that matter paying for the ads and material content. Obviously, CUPE does not want the public to know they are behind the information. That is misleading in itself . . .why not.
They are opposed to private sector involvement in public projects no matter how good the project may be for the good of the citizens.
The CUPE examples are irrelevant to the merits of the Stave Lake Project:
- CUPE is telling the public the water will be privatized – it will not.
- CUPE is telling the public the water will be sold to the U.S. In the words of our trade minister “the Honourable Ed Fast” that is ‘hogwash’ and not legal.
- CUPE’s local expert is a city engineer, retired 10 years ago. His opinions are 10 years out of date, and have been dismissed after 11 years of thorough study on the need for an additional water source.
- If CUPE’s Water Watch is successful in convincing voters to defeat the referendum, Abbotsford will lose the $65 million contribution from the federal government. This is the largest federal contribution to a public project in Abbotsford history. This loss would be unprecedented.
With the $65 million in federal funds we will never have a lower cost for this water project.
Please don’t buy this intentional attempt to mislead the voters of Abbotsford by a national labour union for what they perceive as their own ideological reasons and only to benefit the union nationwide.
The CUPE union interest is not in the Abbotsford public interest.
Dave Holmberg
