The public does not know that the cost-of-living crisis is about to get worse.
With water being such a critical necessity of life, you would think that no politician would risk the wrath of voters, by crossing the red line of water privatization.
Since coming to power in 2018, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has severely reduced parliamentary scrutiny with gigantic Omnibus legislation, attempting to overwhelm the opposition, Ford reduced time allocation and invoked closure allowing the government to conclude debate and force a vote on any Bill. On virtually every Bill Ford has passed he has eliminated transparency, public input and democratic oversight. Ford just did this again and crossed the red line, with his water and wastewater privatization legislation. Here’s why no one knows Ford is privatizing water.
At Christmas time in 2001 Premier Mike Harris announced the sale of Hydro One.
Similarly, Ford, very quietly and very quickly and hidden from public view, just before Christmas when everyone’s attention is elsewhere, with no debate in the legislature on water privatization, no public consultation and no legislative transparency, rammed through Bill 60, the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act 2025, a gigantic Omnibus bill. A bill that gives corporate landlords more power to evict tenants.
Hidden in omnibus Bill 60 is a new act called Water and Waste Water Public Corporations Act. This legislation will enable the privatization of water, and it gets worse. Ford had previously passed Bill 56, which removed local autonomy from local water systems and gave the minister the power to make changes without any public input or oversight. Ford is following the exact same pathway as hydro deregulation.
These bills give the government the power to turn publicly owned municipal water works into for profit corporations, packaging them up for sale. They are starting with Peel Region first.
In a time of a cost-of-living crisis, this bill will allow private corporations the control to raise water rates to maximize profits.
This Conservative government has not learned the lessons from Walkerton, ON where in 1996, after water testing was privatized, at least seven people died and more than 2,300 became very sick, many were hospitalized and many had to go on dialysis, for the rest of their lives.
Water privatization around the world has been a disaster. The most famous water privatization gone bad was Cochabamba, Bolivia, where it became illegal to even collect rain water. That water belonged to the private company Bechtel. Martial law was declared and after two popular uprisings, water was put back under public ownership.
Water and wastewater privatization is very profitable. This is why Ford is introducing water privatization for his rich donors.
Since water privatization was introduced in the UK, shareholder dividends have totaled over 70 billion pounds. This profit driven model has resulted in ever rising bills, with many not being able to pay. They were forced to get their water from public washrooms with the predictable adverse health results.
To keep profits high there was gross underinvestment in infrastructure, resulting in the UK’s waterways becoming an open sewer with record sewage leakage in 2023 closing public beaches. Because of this underinvestment the private water industry in the UK has accumulated an estimated 60 billion in debt, while paying out billions to investors.
Suffering the same problems with water and electricity privatization in Europe, by 2010 most water and electricity facilities leased or sold to the private sector, were brought back under public control. In jurisdictions where water has been privatized, people have been ordered to stop and sued for collecting rainwater. That water belongs to the private owner of reservoirs.
The US has also privatized 4,000 public water works. This was done by introducing fair market laws. Forcing people to pay a private market price for water. These fair market laws made it easier for private companies to purchase public water systems by inflating the valuation allowing cash strapped municipalities to sell for higher prices. In the US, privatized water is now 50 to 80 per cent higher than public water.
Investors and corporations will be lined up ten deep to buy our water utilities
Again, most of these states restrict collection of rainwater.
Let’s look at what happened to another necessity of life, electricity in Ontario.
Hydro rates are still spiking under the deregulation and privatization for- profit model
Despite promising “lower rates and nothing will go wrong,” by 2007 rates doubled, by 2010 rates tripled and by the time Ford first came to power in 2018 rates had quadrupled. According to the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) Ford has been spending up to $7 billion a year in Hydro subsidies artificially lowering Artificially high hydro rates. rates continue to rise.
Ford’s subsidy hides and protects Mike Harris’s deregulated electricity market scheme. On November first the Ontario Energy Board raised hydro rates, 29 per cent. An astonishing increase in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
Normally it is the coverup that sinks politicians who made bad decisions. On November 1 of 2025 Ford also raised the Ontario Electricity Rebate from 13.1per cent to 23.5 per cent, spending billions more from the public purse, completely hiding the increase. That subsidy will now be 8-to-9 billion dollars a year, from the public treasury, further starving healthcare and education. Many people and businesses could not afford their electricity bill without Ford’s hydro subsidy and would be cut off for not paying their bill.
