A proposal to protect Waste Services

This week at the Utility committee I proposed a Notice of Motion regarding waste management.

The notice:

“That administration provide a report to Council exploring the potential of transitioning waste services into a corporate entity to remain fully owned by the City of Edmonton in retaining existing labour commitments including a review of models used and other Canadian municipalities for publicly-owned, arms length corporations delivering waste water services, analysis of potential benefits and risks including fiscal sustainability, service quality and labour impacts, consideration of options to ensure that all existing workers remain employed within a publicly-owned structure, legal, financial and operational feasibility including any required amendments to existing bylaws or  agreements, next pathways that council choose to further explore this option.” 

I want to clarify, this is simply a notice of motion.  I’m not moving this motion forward right now.

The reason is simple: a decision like this deserves careful analysis, union input, and open conversation. My goal has always been to make sure Waste Management stays strong, public, and protected from being chipped away at. That work continues, and when the time is right, we’ll have a mechanism, if necessary, to get the facts in front of us to make the best decision for workers and for Edmontonians.

While this motion could be subject to change, one important note: a publicly-owned entity should never be confused with privatization.

A Stronger Future for Edmonton’s Waste Services

The reason why I decided to look into this is because Edmonton has always prided itself on being a leader in waste management. We’ve had a lot of incredible wins over the last few years, but we’ve got challenges that are only getting bigger. 

Multi-unit buildings and condos are the clearest example. Some are run exceptionally well, with clean, well-managed bin rooms. Others are dealing with overflows, contamination, and illegal dumping. For years, condo associations have lobbied for privatization as the solution.

That’s one pressure point. But it’s not the only one.

There is a vulnerability inherent in the status quo.

In the past, we’ve seen attempts to “peel off” pieces of Waste Management for private contractors. Once one piece is out the door, the rest is easier to follow. If we want a strong, reliable public system, we can’t keep playing defence one decision at a time. We need to look at structural ways to make Waste Management bulletproof – so it stays public, stays union, and stays focused on serving Edmontonians.

What the Motion Would Do If Brought Forward

I want to be clear. The purpose of this conversation would be for the Administration to look into ways of keeping Waste Services safe from privatization but not make any decisions. My potential ask, if made, would be for a report, which would look into: 

• What governance models exist that keep ownership 100% public.

• How those models could improve accountability and performance across levels of service.

• How to build in protections that prevent future councils from carving up Waste Management piece by piece.

• How to lock in the protections that matter most to workers and residents such as successor rights ( transfer of existing collective bargaining agreements and obligations to the employees and their bargaining agent, ensuring continuity of representation and agreements), transparency, affordability, universal service.

• Could such a model allow us to provide services and partner with other municipalities, reducing their costs, while also increasing our revenue, ensuring the health and viability of our service and allowing us to expand, generating more job and career opportunities for employees? (Without a cost to you, the taxpayer.) Right now, we can’t do this. As a publicly owned corporation, it is possible.

This is about taking the time now to understand our options before someone else forces the question.

Other Alberta cities, like Medicine Hat, have shown the value of taking a hard look at governance models before making changes. They did the review, heard from the public, and in the end voted to not change anything, to keep them fully public. It shows you can look at the options without rushing and without a preconceived outcome.

This report is about exploring how we are building the strongest future for our waste system: transparent, accountable, and permanently in the public’s hands. And doing our due diligence to ensure we are protecting it from a continuous attempt to sell-off parts of the service.

A Pathway to Protect and Strengthen

The report should give us tools to:

1. Guarantee public ownership. Rules written so shares can’t be sold or transferred, and any attempt would need a public process, a potential board with union representation and a supermajority vote.

2. Protect union jobs. Successor rights, pensions, benefits, and portability across City and Waste so workers don’t lose career paths.

3. Raise service standards. Multi-unit, three-stream collection across the board, with design standards, enforcement, and clear property-manager responsibilities.

4. Keep transparency high. Annual public reports, open AGMs, FOIP-style access, so residents and workers can see what’s happening.

5. Lock in public-service goals like diversion targets, affordability, universal access, all mandated in the charter so no board or manager can drift toward the “profit-first” model at the expense of the city or of the workers.

Done right, this can future-proof the service so it can’t be chipped away at, and about setting it up to grow stronger over time.

And at the same time provide far more protections and options that currently exist with the status quo.

The Concerns We’ll Need to Address

Unions are right to ask: does creating a publicly owned arm for Waste Management create distance from Council? Could it make privatization easier? Does it risk duplicating admin costs?

These aren’t things to dismiss, in fact, they’re things to design to and to be taken into consideration so we can build something stronger.

The report must spell out in plain language how we would guard against them, and how Edmonton’s approach could be stronger than examples where those risks weren’t addressed.

What We Can Learn From Others:

• EPCOR shows that a municipally owned corporation can stay 100% public, deliver reliable service, and return major dividends to the City, but it also shows the importance of transparency and keeping executive culture in check.

• Claystone Waste (Beaver County) demonstrates how corporatization can protect public ownership and even expand services regionally while paying dividends back to communities.

• Aquatera (Grande Prairie) shows that a regional public utility can run the full suite of waste, water, and energy services under one roof.

• Toronto SWMS reminds us that you don’t need a corporation to get utility discipline: it runs as a rate-supported City division, fully public and transparent, funded by user fees.

Each example has lessons, good and bad. Edmonton can take those lessons and consider the potential of exploring whether our current model serves us best, or if there are other approaches we could look at to ensure we keep the service labour-friendly, impervious to privatization, and a model that optimizes the service for the benefit of Edmontonians.

Why This Matters

I hope to encourage important conversations that can inform the best ways to improve our waste services into the future for all Edmontonians in a way that protects accountability to the public and respects front-line workers. 

This isn’t about tomorrow. It’s about five, 10, 20 years from now. If we want Waste Management to remain a strong, public, unionized service – immune from the politics of the day – we need to do our homework now.

That’s what this report is about: not defending against privatization case by case, but building a vision for Waste Management that is locked in, resilient, and ready for the future.