...Robin Mathews - continued

Just a few days ago, concerning the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, Barack Obama stopped all new drilling there … and more … and he explained that the situation was one in which the big oil companies in fact owned the regulators. That is part hang-over from the Bush time and part a concrete direction taking place because of the present assumptions of the “Free Market Economy”.

Government by corporations in British Columbia reaches farther than the exploitation of resources and energy. By new legislation the Campbell government is working to prevent the effectiveness of the special representative for Children and Families, Mary-Ellen Turpel Lafond. Having been forced by the courts to surrender cabinet documents to her, the Campbell government will pass legislation to limit her work. Is it possible that corporations don’t believe governments should be involved in “charity” which should come from the rich and private corporations? Why else the attack on the proved good work by Mary-Ellen Turpel Lafond?

Until now, B.C. waters could be developed as needed for drinking and for power generation to serve the whole province and to use carefully to gain revenue to pay for healthcare, education, and other real social needs. Since Gordon Campbell – against clear promises – BC Hydro has been emasculated, fragmented, privatized – and its natural extensions of activity wrenched from its hands and placed into the ownership of private corporations with the result that costs for electricity to British Columbians will climb and climb as private corporations make wealth for the few. AND, as importantly, oversight and regulation of river-power use and the maintenance of river integrity has little chance of being sustained.

That shift has been accompanied by a policy of privatization of vast tracts of land. The November/December, 2008 “Watershed Sentinel”reports a B.C. government decision to privatize 28,000 hectares of Western Forest Proucts Tree Farm Licence area, a process the Campbell government has been engaging in almost since coming into office. The implications are obvious. In the 1950’s the forest licence program was instituted to allow large forest corporations to control huge tracts of land under lease, with low tax assessment. The corporations are handed, in effect, huge gifts of wealth from the public commons. And – as is wholly consistent with the new privatization regime - the people of British Columbia are excluded as much as possible from the process. They must use the courts and organized protest in order to have the least effect on individual privatizations. They have no effect on policy.

Water for energy is one thing, water for life is another. And all over the world water for human consumption as well as for all other uses is being seized, controlled, owned, and exploited more and more for private gain.

Perhaps the most famous case concerning water for human consumption is that of Bolivia’s third largest city Cochabamba - and its relation with the fifth largest privately-owned corporation in the U.S.A. Bechtel Corporation is said to have close ties with the CIA. It controls most of U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. It involves itself in huge building projects – the Channel Tunnel, Hong Kong Airport, Iraq re-building … and much, much more. It owns oil refineries, water systems, and airports … in the U.S., Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Water systems. With other corporations it has tried owning the water systems of poor countries, perhaps believing it could wring money from the impoverished people without the rest of the world noticing and raising an alarm.

I said that privatization is in full flood all over the world. That is due, in part, to the work of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, both of which agree to loan to countries in financial distress if they will – among other things – privatize all publicly owned enterprises. Both pushed Bolivia to privatize water for human consumption.

In 1999 all of traditional water systems in Cochabamba were – without any compensation – handed to a Bechtel-controlled private corporation. Bechtel raised water prices around 200 per cent. Many in Cochabamba couldn’t afford to buy water to drink. The corporation didn’t care. Bolivian law, moreover, prevented people from using traditional wells or even from gathering rain water to drink. Water was owned by Bechtel – even water that fell from the sky onto people’s heads.

A huge, long-run public protest action did nothing to influence Bechtel. Resistance took place for months. Lives were lost. The resistance spread to other parts of Bolivia. Finally, the resistance won and control of water in the city was returned to the people. But not until, apparently, Bechtel wrung out of Bolivia a very large payment to withdraw. That is the Free Market Economy at work. That is privatization as theft.

The Cochabamba story is key. For it is one of the most naked examples that shows privatization is theft, and that privatizing corporations – as a general rule – privatize to make money, generously willing to abuse the most basic human needs to gain profit.

I think of Trevor Wicks’ presentation, and I think he provides a compelling reason why the ownership of water and its geographical locations must be
wrested from private ownership and control. Ownership must be vested in the people. All users must have input. Access to clean, usable, water for the population must be the first principle. And that must include all aspects of the use of water. Both fresh water and salt water.

How many know that fish farms on the ocean AND increasingly expanding ocean-located, luxury, so-called fish-camps are operating with no oversight or (as with the Alberta Tar Sands) regulation and review programs in place that are almost completely disregarded? In some cases – consistent with the development of regulation – regulations exist and are simply never enforced.

Enough. The water of the world is becoming more scarce as population increases and climate change threatens river systems. Water must be a public asset that cannot be passed into the control of any private corporation or corporations. Cochabama makes that absolutely clear. Gordon Campbell proves it over and over. Stephen Harper betrays public trust openly in order to prove it. Bechtel helps prove it.

Privatization is theft. Privatization of water is theft, accompanied by crimes – of the kind that Trevor Wicks reveals being perpetrated in this local area concerning suspicions about health and human safety. The battle against the privatization of water is part of a battle to reclaim the commons for the people all over the world. And it is part of the battle to reclaim democracy – fast slipping away, by the calculated planning of corporations and their representatives in present governments.

The conflict between the population and the combined force of government and private corporations is an unequal one. Despite the uplifting news Maud Barlow gave of some victories on behalf of the people, for “the commons” in the world, the losses continue to be greater than the victories! We cannot pretend otherwise.

The losses go on being greater than the gains.

For that reason I believe that present organizations must become more determined. New organizations must be formed. We all must be willing to intervene to back off and to defeat the new coalescence of government and large corporations. That means we have to be more willing to act and to act with force and determination. Organizations must, I believe, study and develop strategies of intervention that stop or impede the economic success of objectionable corporations in such a way that almost all of the attention brought to actions will reflect well on those who intervene and badly on the objectionable corporations.

British Columbians today lack information they need to judge the government that is deceiving them. That is because the Mainstream Press and Media ARE THEMSELVES objectionable large corporations supporting privatization, corporation/government coalescence, and – I allege – the criminal activities that result. That means that the “strategies of intervention” must take into account the automatic antipathy of the Mainstream Press and Media.

Whatever the difficulty, we must fashion new weapons. We must create strategies of intervention. And we must act.