Right now, #BritishColumbia has the lowest industrial #water rates in #Canada - effectively giving away one of our most vital #PublicResources to some of the world’s largest industries. Meanwhile, communities are left struggling to fund the response to worsening droughts, floods, wildfires, and drinking water crises.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Bringing BC’s industrial water rates in line with other provinces is a fair, practical way to:

Fund stronger watershed security
Support sustainable economic growth.
Keep communities safe and resilient to floods, fires, and water shortages.
Safeguard BC jobs, grow food, and protect the economy — every industry depends on water.
Do it all without costing taxpayers a dime.
This is a simple, fair, and fiscally responsible solution that will build long-term watershed security across BC.

https://www.watershedsecurity.ca/home/water-giveaway/

Investing in #WatershedSecurity aligns with the values of a significant majority of voters, as 78% of British Columbians want to see major investments from the provincial government to protect freshwater in BC.

#BCpoli #CDNpoli #WaterIsLife #Environmental #ecological #Watersheds #WaterProtectors #BCWatershedSecurityFund #PacificNorthwest #ClimateAction #Cascadia #PNW #sustainability #WaterStewardship #ProtecfWater #BCNDP #Freshwater #BCWatershedSecurityCoalition #NonPartisan

First draft for a public tech development:

- Public money is invested in public technological infrastructure
- The organisations that are developing this infrastructure should be non-profit organisations - that is, they should not be privately owned, run to make profit or pay out dividend. (This doesn't mean they can have budget for experimental research, maintenance etc. this is all part of their day to day functioning)
- Ownership and decision-making should be with both the workers and the public and not in the hand a a few. Yearly these institutions have to publicly report back on their development (both in terms of output and finances)
- The technology/software developed should follow the basic principle of 'privacy by design'. No hidden cookies, data tracking etc.
- Such software should, where possible/desirable be freely available stimulating the use of safe and responsible software and pushing back on the monopoly of the big tech-players of today (Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, OpenAI etc.)
- Open Source technology has proven its strength, especially for companies seriously committed to it.
- The technology/software developed should be done so on cooperation instead on competition - for instance in Europe many universities have very similar educational needs and it makes all the more sense to have an European wide developer that is able to meet those needs on the before described basis.

There is probably a couple more points, maybe I will write a second draft. This proposal should also be in line with an anarchist future society.

Have thoughts on this as well? I'd like to hear them!

#technology #tech #freedom #opensource #publicresources #tyranny #dictatorship #workersselfmanagement #economy #needsnotprofit #creativecommons #privacy