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For Immediate Release
November, 24 2009, 08:26am EDT
Contact:
Dylan Penner, Council of Canadians Media Officer, 613-795-8685
Council of Canadians Warns Against Alberta Water Market Plans
OTTAWA, Ontario
The Council of Canadians is sounding the alarm over recommendations the
government received today to formalize and extend a water market system
throughout the province of Alberta. The Alberta government released
reports today containing recommendations from a few select sources,
including an advisory group appointed by the Minister of Environment.
"The implementation of these recommendations would open the door to
full private water markets, which have wreaked havoc on the environment
in countries like Australia and Chile," warns Maude Barlow, national
chairperson of the Council of Canadians. "Letting the market decide who
will have access to water violates the public trust doctrine, a
principle of common law which regards water as belonging equally to all
peoples and managed by governments on their behalf."
"The Alberta government has clearly decided that it is not interested
in other potential solutions to the province's looming water crisis
besides turning Alberta's water over to the market system," says Scott
Harris, Prairies Regional Organizer for the Council of Canadians. "This
is an obvious attempt to frame the discussion in forthcoming public
consultations to focus exclusively on market-based solutions."
The Minister's Advisory Group report recommends further entrenching the
water transfer system which now exists in the South Saskatchewan River
Basin and extending it to entire province. The Council of Canadians
warns that this plan would give water resources up to the highest
bidder forcing cash-strapped municipalities to compete with big oil and
other large industries for increasingly scarce water resources.
While expanding the market for water allocation transfers to the entire
province and compelling all users to participate in the market, the
minister's advisory group also recommends removing much of the
government oversight in approving transfer applications.
The Council of Canadians is calling instead for the Alberta government
to adopt a public trust doctrine that makes governments responsible for
distributing water according to the public interest. The group is
demanding that such a policy also establish a hierarchy of use that
places environmental needs, the right to water, local food production
and cultural use above the commercial use of water.
"This highlights the lack of federal legislative safeguards in Canada
allowing provinces to sell off water resources," says Meera
Karunananthan, national water campaigner for the Council of Canadians.
"A water market in Alberta sets a dangerous trend with regards to the
management of water resources in Canada."
The organization is calling for a national water policy that recognizes water as a human right and a public trust.
Founded in 1985, the Council of Canadians is Canada's leading social action organization, mobilizing a network of 60 chapters across the country.
Office: (613) 233-4487, ext. 249LATEST NEWS
‘Frightening’: Tom Homan Uses War Jargon to Describe ICE Operations in Minnesota
"'In theater' is an expression that has no place anywhere within the United States," said one critic.
Jan 29, 2026
White House border czar Tom Homan on Thursday sparked alarm when he used terminology associated with overseas war to describe federal immigration operations taking place in Minnesota.
During a press briefing, Homan was asked about the number of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents operating in Minnesota.
"3,000," Homan replied. "There's been some rotations. Another thing I witnessed when I came here, I'll share this with you, I've met a lot of people, they've been in theater, some of them have been in theater for eight months. So there's going to be rotations of personnel."
Q: Can you be specific about how many ICE and Border Patrol agents are currently operating in the state?
HOMAN: 3,000. There's been some rotations. They've been in theater a long time. Day after day, can't eat in restaurants, people spin on you, blowing whistles at you. But my… pic.twitter.com/1Vz8mKYCAv
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2026
Typically terms such as "rotations" and "theater" are not used to describe domestic law enforcement operations, but overseas military deployments.
Many critics were quick to notice Homan's use of war jargon to describe actions being taken in a US city and said it was reflective of how the Trump administration sees itself as an occupying force in its own country.
"'In theater' like they're landing marines at Guadalcanal or something," wrote Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), in a post on X. "This stuff is happening in suburban American communities, that's where they're sending violent, masked invaders."
Northwestern University historian Kathleen Belew also expressed shock at Homan's rhetoric.
"'In theater' is an expression that has no place anywhere within the United States," she wrote on Bluesky. "'In theater' means in a war."
Andrew Lawrence, deputy director of rapid response as Media Matters, said Homan's war talk was "a crazy way to describe Minneapolis," while documentary filmmaker John Darwin Kurc described it as a "frightening characterization."
Shelby Edwards, a retired US Army major, also recognized the violent implications of Homan's words.
"Incredibly damaging how military language has infiltrated these agencies," she observed. "'In theater' is used for deployments into foreign nations, when we deploy soldiers we say things like this. This is America. This is an American agency assigned to an American city."
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As Democrats Push for ICE ‘Reforms,’ a Judge Shows How Flagrantly the Agency Already Violates Law
"ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence."
Jan 29, 2026
Amid the latest budget standoff in Congress, Senate Democrats on Wednesday said they may be willing to make a deal to fund the US Department of Homeland Security in exchange for a slate of "reforms" designed to rein in what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer described as Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "state-sanctioned thuggery."
But just because something is written in law doesn't mean ICE agents will follow it.
That's what Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of the US District Court in Minnesota—a conservative jurist appointed by former President George W. Bush—demonstrated when, as part of an order issued Wednesday, he published a list of nearly 100 court orders ICE has violated in just the month of January.
Schiltz issued the list as part of an order canceling a hearing for acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, whom he’d previously ordered to appear in court on Friday or face contempt. The judge demanded Lyon's personal appearance after ICE ignored the judge’s order to give a bail hearing to a detainee, Juan Hugo Tobay Robles, one of “dozens of court orders with which respondents have failed to comply in recent weeks.” Schiltz canceled Lyons’ hearing when Robles was released from custody.
"That does not end the Court’s concerns, however," Schiltz wrote on Wednesday. "Attached to this order is an appendix that identifies 96 court orders that ICE has violated in 74 cases."
"This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law," he went on. "ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence."
"ICE," he said, "is not law unto itself."
This scathing document of ICE's willful disregard for the law was top of mind for many critics of the compromise Democrats appear poised to make in exchange for passing a budget package that includes $64.4 billion in DHS funding, including $10 billion for ICE and $18 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
On Thursday, seven Republicans joined Democrats in a 45-55 vote to block the spending package, which needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate. Democrats have said they want to separate DHS funding from the rest of the bill in order to negotiate a series of "reforms." If a deal is not reached by January 30, funding for DHS and several other agencies will lapse, causing another partial government shutdown.
On Wednesday, Schumer told the press that Democrats are "united" behind three key reforms to DHS. Per TIME Magazine:
“We want to end roving patrols,” Schumer said, laying out Democrats’ first demand. “We need to tighten the rules governing the use of warrants and require ICE coordination with state and local law enforcement.”
Second, he said, Democrats want to “enforce accountability,” including a uniform federal code of conduct and independent investigations into alleged abuses. Federal agents, he argued, should be held to the same use-of-force standards as local police and face consequences when they violate them.
Third, Schumer said, Democrats are demanding “masks off, body cameras on,” a reference to proposals that would bar agents from wearing face coverings, require they wear body cameras and mandate that agents carry visible identification. “No more anonymous agents, no more secret operatives,” he said.
Journalist and political analyst Adam Johnson described these proposals as "superficial," with many already being codified into law or even the US Constitution.
"As many scholars have noted, Trump arresting people without warrants is already unconstitutional and illegal, but his DHS is doing it anyway," he wrote. "Passing laws to enforce existing law may dissuade the Trump regime in some contexts, but it’s unclear why Trump wouldn’t just ignore the new law since they duly ignored the previous one."
He also said, "It’s unclear how much power Congress or states would have to 'enforce accountability' while Trump’s cartoonishly corrupt DOJ continues to investigate and threaten state lawmakers and leaders with prison time."
Johnson noted that the list of demands made by progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was more comprehensive, including bans on arrest quotas and forcing ICE to end its reign of terror in Minneapolis, but said "it’s unclear how Congress would define, much less enforce, these parameters. And most conspicuous of all, their demands make zero mention of reducing DHS’s obscene budget."
DHS funds were already increased by $170 billion over the next five years in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress last year, and ICE funding tripled, from $10 billion per year to $30 billion, making it the equivalent of the 13th most expensive military in the world.
Aaron Regunberg, a writer at the New Republic, questioned what good it was to subject ICE to new laws when, as Schiltz's order showed, "ICE breaks the law, courts order them to stop, and then they keep breaking the law."
"You have to be dumb as bricks to think the answer is to pass a law saying it's against the law to break the law," he continued. "The answer is to stop giving these fascist goons billions of our tax dollars."
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'Beginning of the Chaos': FBI Raid in Georgia Seen as Ominous Sign of Trump Plans for 2026 Midterms
"This should have people across the country absolutely shook," said Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Jan 29, 2026
The FBI's Wednesday raid on an elections center in Fulton County, Georgia is raising alarms about President Donald Trump's plans to disrupt the 2026 midterm elections.
Shortly after FBI agents executed a search warrant at the Fulton County Election Hub and Operations center to search for materials related to the 2020 presidential election, Fulton County Commissioner Mo Ivory warned that this kind of operation would likely be spreading to other counties and states.
"Fulton County is right now the target, the only county right now fighting over an election that already happened," she said, referring to Trump's election loss that he has refused to concede more than five years after it happened. "But it is coming to a place near you. This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue."
Commissioner Mo Ivory: Fulton County is right now the target, the only county right now fighting over an election that already happened. But it is coming to a place near you. This is the beginning of the chaos of 2026 that is about to ensue. pic.twitter.com/0HvPMMoQO8
— Blue Georgia (@BlueATLGeorgia) January 28, 2026
In a Wednesday interview on MSNOW, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) described the raid on the elections center as a "seismic event" that should be a flashing red light for US voters.
"This should have people across the country absolutely shook," Ossoff said. "This is a huge deal. This is an FBI raid on the Fulton County Elections office. [Trump's] conspiracy theories about the 2020 election have been based in Georgia from the very start... this is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections. He tried to steal power when he lost it in 2020. We have to be prepared for all kinds of schemes and shenanigans."
Ossoff: "This is a seismic event. This should have people across the country absolutely shook. This is a huge deal. This is an FBI raid on the Fulton County Elections office ... This is a shot across the bow at the midterm elections. He tried to steal power when he lost it in… pic.twitter.com/vb8YwcP3Pa
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2026
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) noted that US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was spotted at the elections center during the FBI raid, which he said was wholly unprecedented given that her job is supposed to be focused on foreign national security threats.
Warner then posited two explanations for her presence on the ground in Fulton County.
"Director Gabbard believes there was a legitimate foreign intelligence nexus," Warner wrote in a social media post, "in which case she is in clear violation of her obligation under the law to keep the intelligence committees 'fully and currently informed' of relevant national security concerns."
The other option, said Warner, is that Gabbard "is once again demonstrating her utter lack of fitness for the office that she holds by injecting the nonpartisan intelligence community she is supposed to be leading into a domestic political stunt designed to legitimize conspiracy theories that undermine our democracy."
ProPublica published a report on Thursday that dove into the specifics of the search warrant executed at the Fulton County election center that allowed federal agents to seize 2020 election ballots, tabulator tapes, digital data, and voter rolls.
Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told ProPublica that he has never seen a search warrant of this nature.
"The idea that federal officials would seize ballots in an attempt to prove fraud is especially dangerous in this context," said Hasen, "when we know there is no fraud because the Georgia 2020 election has been extensively counted, recounted, and investigated."
Derek Clinger, a senior counsel at the State Democracy Research Initiative, an institute at the University of Wisconsin Law School, told ProPublica that the sweeping search warrant marked "a dramatic escalation in the Trump administration’s efforts to expand federal control over our country’s historically state-run election infrastructure."
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