“Keep your hands off our water. It is not for sale,” said Dawn Bellerose, co-chair of the National Indigenous Council in the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
On this year’s World Water Day CUPE is entering the second year of their Water is Life campaign. One of the big concerns for CUPE is the threat of privatization to water infrastructures.
“CUPE also has a long history of defending public and community-controlled water and wastewater services,” the union wrote on their website. “We will keep fighting new threats to our water systems.”
Bellerose explained that corporate management of resources and infrastructure exacerbates water crises.
“Anytime you see privatization come into the field, it’s not going to fare well for the individual or the community,” Bellerose said in an interview with rabble.ca. “Someone’s making a profit off of our natural resources or things that should be publicly owned. People shouldn’t be making money off water. Water connects us all. We need it to live. We need it to survive.”
CUPE has released a checklist to help people identify early warning signs of privatization. In this resource, CUPE explained that COVID-19 has demonstrated the need for public services. However, budgetary issues may make contracting out seem appealing, despite privatization costing more in the end.
CUPE explained that regularly monitoring whether there are cuts to public services, layoffs, emergency legislation that may weaken the public sector helps to fight privatization at its earliest stages. They wrote that attending public meetings of the employer, whether that be municipal meetings, agency meetings or board meetings, allows workers to stay up to date.
Water justice
Keeping infrastructure in the public sector can help promote water justice. The results of profit driven resource extraction can be dire for communities, especially Indigenous communities.
Profit driven use of resources is what allows hardship for many Indigenous people to persist. Bellerose reflected on her experience with workshops that helped her understand the history of colonialism. She said that she gained a better understanding of environmental racism and how it is at play with water injustice.
“When I was a little girl, my grandparents lived an hour away. Traveling to visit them on the weekends, we had to drive past reservations. I always thought, ‘Why would people want to live on the train track?’” Bellerose said. “It’s because when the land was taken, this is where people were put. The poorest quality of land was given to them. Then they’ve enriched it with their culture, the trees, etc. But issues persist because then governments allow businesses to go in and again, steal these resources.”
CUPE explained on their website that resource extraction is harming water sources that communities rely on. Just three years ago, in 2020, the Algoma Central Corporation pleaded guilty to dumping wastewater in Lake Ontario. Water resources are being polluted or drained while many communities don’t have access to clean drinking water.
The federal government has committed to ending long-term boil water advisories but CUPE asserts that this is only the start of addressing water injustice. At the moment, 32 long-term drinking advisories in place in 28 FIrst Nations communities. However, CUPE has emphasized in their campaign that federal statistics do not tell the whole story.
“The Liberal government pledge to end boil-water advisories in First Nation communities only covers long-term drinking water advisories for water systems serving five or more homes on First Nation reserves,” CUPE wrote on their website. “The government is not focusing on fixing piping into homes, or on homes with no piping that rely on large tanks of water called cisterns, or on supporting wastewater treatment systems, which are vital to protect safe drinking water… Many Indigenous peoples and communities are left out of these specific efforts.”
Bellerose said that it is vital that people remain attentive to this issue. Mass mobilization is key to protecting community interests.
“We have the resources,” Bellerose said “We are the largest union in Canada. We have the members behind us and there is strength in numbers.”
Bellerose also explained that addressing this issue must extend beyond CUPE. Other organizations have joined in the work to protect water resources and it is time to get involved.
“Consider our future,” Bellerose said. “What is the future going to be like for the workers coming up behind us? We want to leave the earth better than how we found it.”
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