Monday night, councilor Stephen Chase brought forward a proposal to look into public-private partnerships to develop a new water treatment system. Luckily, council was convinced and supported the proposal. Of course, not everyone was supportive. The city’s union showed up in full force to try and stop it from happening. Workers pretended to sell water in cups with a $100 price tag, insinuating that water rates would skyrocket if services are privatized. Seriously now, people in this city don’t care who maintains the water as long as its good and safe - something the public system isn’t able to guarantee.

The water issue became a discussion topic in the city back in September when tests results on the west side came back showing high levels of trihalomethane. The construction of two new filtration plants is estimated to have a cost between $110 million and $140 million for the city and would not be financially feasible until 2012 - that’s where this proposal comes in.

“Quite frankly the people in this city just want quality services and delivery,” said Stephen Chase. “At this point I think it’s probably the most viable option.” He’s not alone either. Talk to anyone on city water. We can’t wait around for years while the city figured out how to pay for it themselves, this has to get started now!

Why public-private partnerships you might ask?

This article makes some very good points:

There are three reasons to choose public-private partnerships. The first is city hall’s political and professional record. Residents have no reason to believe a project as complex as a new municipal waterworks, with an estimated price tag of $120 million, will be managed well. Why would it, when nothing else is?

The second reason to consider a commercial partnership is cost. It is far easier for a city to come up with a share of the capital costs of new infrastructure than it is to raise the full amount. Even with a growing tax base, it could take Saint John 10 years to raise the capital required for major water projects.

The third is reliability. Private-sector partners are more accountable than politicians or city staff. Corporate managers know that if a project fails due to negligence on their company’s part, there will be a high price to pay.

Doesn’t Moncton have a public-private partnership?

This article written by John Chilibeck, explains the situation:

Moncton was facing similar water woes a decade ago when it forged a controversial public-private partnership with US Filter. The same CUPE labour types showed up to protest the company would build a new water plant and tried to raise a panic about privatization and water piracy. Brian Murphy, the mayor at the time, even appeared on national television to defend the partnership scheme.

So what happened?

The city of Moncton signed a good agreement. Now boil water orders from the 1990s are a distant memory. The plant was built quickly and at a savings of $9 million to the municipality. Water rates went up once - $100 a home - and did not skyrocket. The water tastes better because there is less chlorine used.

And safety wise? For eight consecutive years, the water has met or exceeded Canadian drinking water guidelines. A private company is still subject to the same fines if it delivers unsafe water, making it play safe.

What now?

Now is the time to show your support for the proposal. Contact your councilors and tell them you want to see serious action taken. This is only the first step - but it’s a step in the right direction!

Step 1: Identify a zombie

Step 2: Survive an attack

Step 3: Kill the undead

The big news last week (besides the throne speech) was the Parti Québécois saying it will push ahead with it’s proposed “identity act”. This legislation is aimed at creating Quebec citizenship.

So why do they think this is necessary? Well, look at the situation: immigrants to Quebec are choosing English over French. Clearly this goes against everything the Parti Québécois stands for - they are after all an anti-English party in a province that is primarily French speaking. Anyone who does not have a “working” knowledge of French can’t hold public office, raise funds or petition for a political party, or petition the National Assembly with a grievance. They say this will send a strong message to immigrants, who she says too often continue to choose English when they arrive.

My thoughts? I think the Parti Québécois is a discriminatory party that wants to punish anyone who dosn’t speak French in Quebec. Under no circumstances should any government in this country (at any level), have the power to tell you what languages you have to speak. And on top of that, creating citizenship where you are second class based on your choice of language? I find that totally unacceptable.

My solution? New Brunswick’s government should be pushing hard to encourage immigrants to live here - by pushing our values. We are the only bilingual province in Canada (since 1969), where you can get government services in either English or French. We welcome people of all cultures and backgrounds. We love to see people speaking their native languages. Immigrants are what made this province so great! In order to keep moving forward, immigration needs to increase and it will when we show the world what we have and how we operate!

Our government should start a campaign and let everyone know that if your not welcome in Quebec - you sure as hell are welcome here!

While the Telegraph Journal writes about students marching to save the Saint John campus, the Globe and Mail today included a feature that tells us another story. The University Report Card 2007 was included in todays newspaper. It is also available online here.

It surveyed students at Universities all across the country and graded them based on the responses. It also grouped them so that similar sized Universities were listed together.

The result? UNB-SJ received low marks when compared to similar sized Universities (under 4,000 students).

Some of the lower graded items include:

• Number of courses to choose from
• School spirit
• Assistance with locating part-time jobs to fund education
• Co-op/internship opportunities
• Career counselling services
• Career placement services
• Quality of the food available on campus

I want to see the University remain in the city; however, changes need to be made to make it better. Too much focus has been on marching to protest the education report, while issues like these, raised today by the national newspaper, are left alone. Doing nothing is not an option!

I believe the University needs to focus in on certain areas that we can do very well such as Business and Medicine. Courses and programs that are not being run to an above average quality should be removed. There shouldn’t be any average quality courses, what is the point, there are a number of other Universities, in this province alone, that could do the exact same thing. And why stop there? Work towards more focus areas such as a Pharmacy program. There isn’t a University in this province where you can earn your Pharmacy degree. Focus areas like this is what will keep people in our province and in our city.

Bring on the focus in areas where we can exceed average quality, enhance the reputation of the campus, and make a difference in this city. It’s all within reach when we start discussing the issues openly!

This May, Saint John will be electing our officials in a mixed-ward system. We will have the option of voting for two individuals in our ward, and two at large. This results comes after many months of hard work from councilors such as Stephen Chase and Michelle Hooton. They were able to convince council to let the people decide in a plebiscite. I strongly supported the plebiscite as it allowed the citizens to vote on a matter that council has an obvious conflict of interest in!

Although turnout was low (22%), everyone had plenty of opportunity to vote if they wanted to. There were two advance polls last week and voters were able to visit the returning office to vote. The city even provided free bus service all day to allow people to get to the polls! The people that wanted to vote did so and those are the only numbers that matter at the end of the day.

According to the Telegraph Journal, the “yes” vote won in every single ballot box except for one - it tied. The unofficial results are: 7,570 voted yes and 3,110 voted no. The official results should be released later today.

There is now a deadline to get the new bylaw submitted to the province - December 9th. The only remaining work to approve the ward boundaries and how the deputy mayor is selected. The current proposal, from city staff, is to have the deputy mayor’s duties split between the two at large councilors. I like that idea; but, I am open to other ideas.

Overall, I’m very glad of the result, and I look forward to next May! Who ever said Saint John isn’t exciting?

That’s right - and this new coordinator is me. I had a chance to sit down with Jeff Roach, the executive director of Catalict/PropelSJ, last week to discuss Freespots. I was very interested in helping out anyway I could. Luckily, I am getting that chance now.

I’ve signed myself up to work on promoting the brand, validating existing Freespots, and growing new Freespots all across the city! I’m really excited to get started. The place to watch in the meantime is our Facebook group. Join up and invite your friends!

So what is Freespots? Simply put - it’s the public wi-fi service for the city of Saint John, New Brunswick that covers the city with FREE wireless internet. That’s right - free!

So how does it work? Instead of asking the city to spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to provide wireless internet in the city, Freespots works directly with the community. Freespots encourages local businesses to install and maintain wi-fi access points according to an established standard and promotes participating businesses and city property owners that have installed wi-fi hotspots according to the standard. There are no fees required to participate.

Where can I get connected? Simply visit our website: http://freespots.ca/find-freespots.cfm

Where can I get more information? Visit our website: http://freespots.ca and our Facebook group: I Want More Freespots!