On Sept. 25, regina residents voted in a referendum to reject a plan to build a new waste-water treatment plant using the traditional design/bid/build (DBB) model, for which the city would borrow the money to build the $224-million plant, then operate and maintain it like any other city-owned facility.

In rejecting the DBB, citizens voted in favour of a public/private partnership (a.k.a. P3), in which a private partner would sign a fixed-price contract to finance, build, operate and maintain the plant for 30 years. In addition, the P3 project would be eligible for $58.5 million in federal money to defray up to 25% of the capital cost of the plant.

The vote was decisive, with 57% of voters against the DBB option and 43% in favour. Turnout was surprisingly high, with slightly more than 49,000 voters casting ballots, only slightly less than the 51,000 who voted in the municipal election a year earlier.

Why would the citizens of Regina be voting in a referendum to overturn a unanimous decision of council to approve the P3 project, preferring to adopt the DBB proposal that was rejected by both city hall and an international consulting firm?

More important, why would voters be deciding a technical question on how a sewage-treatment plant should be built less than one year after electing a mayor and council to make such decisions for them?

Therein hangs a cautionary tale for communities considering the P3 model for any major infrastructure project that comes within firing range of the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ (CUPE) national campaign against privatization.

By way of background, CUPE has been fighting “privatization in all its forms,” including P3s, for more than a decade. The union allocated $5 million to the battle in 2009 and a similar amount last year. CUPE has set up about 30 so-called “Water Watches” – grassroots, community-based organizations that provide the “boots on the ground” for CUPE’s campaign.

When Regina’s city council decided to back the P3 project in February, Regina Water Watch, ably headed by retired CUPE regional director Jim Holmes, swung into action. Water Watch volunteers worked for months circulating a petition, calling on the city to use the DBB model to build the waste-water treatment plant.

When Regina Water Watch got the required 10% of the population (about 24,000 signatures) on the petition, the city clerk ruled the petition insufficient, mainly because about 4,000 of the signatures were dated incorrectly.

But council decided to hold the referendum anyway and adopted the Regina Water Watch question to avoid any legal battles that might delay the project further.

A brief but heated campaign ensued, featuring several public debates between Regina Water Watch’s Holmes and Mayor Michael Fougere. The business community and taxpayer groups lined up behind the No side; the unions and environmental groups backed the Yes side.

In the end, the No side prevailed, mainly because most voters agreed with Fougere that P3 project would get the federal grant, and the DBB would cost taxpayers $276 a year in higher utility bills.

Money, it seems, won over ideology.

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