In November 2025, the Ontario government rushed through new legislation to dramatically restructure public drinking water and wastewater services without any public consultation.

The Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act (WCA) authorizes the province’s minister of municipal affairs and housing to remove water and wastewater services from local governments and assign them to arms-length governance structures by classifying them as “water and wastewater public corporations (WCCs).”

Despite being buried among other controversial measures in the omnibus Bill 60, the WCA drew considerable public backlash. A broad-based coalition was formed, bringing together water workers, environmental organizations, physicians and anti-poverty activists to push back against what seemed like the stealth privatization of provincial water infrastructure.

In response, Premier Doug Ford’s government tabled amendments to restrict shareholders in WCCs to “a municipality, the Province of Ontario, the Government of Canada or an agent of any of them” under Bill 98, which is now in third reading.

But University of British Columbia law professor Joel Bakan has concluded these amendments don’t rule out privatization. The possibility of shares being held by the ambiguously termed “agent” of the state opens the door for any number of public-private configurations.

Financialization

While critical details might be clarified in upcoming regulations, a troubling picture emerges when connecting the dots. Whether the WCA leads to outright privatization, its proposed reforms are consistent with an insidious global push to make municipal water and sanitation systems more amenable to private investment. This essentially transforms them into tradeable assets.

This process, known as financialization, would erode the public health and social mandate of public water infrastructure, undermining the capacity of communities to cope with growing ecological and financial stresses.

Around the world, fierce public opposition has resulted in the termination or non-renewal of private contracts in hundreds of communities around the world. Even the staunchest proponents of privatization now view water as too politically risky and insufficiently profitable for private sector engagement.

At the same time, there has been a growing appetite for “bankable” water infrastructure projects in the face of growing economic uncertainty. In response, international financial institutions and other powerful entities are pushing for policy reforms to pave the way for the integration of water into global financial markets.

Extracting profit

Privatization is not a necessary precursor to financialization. Corporatized public utilities, argues British water researcher Kate Bayliss, can perform the same function of laying the groundwork and creating revenue streams that can eventually be captured by financial markets.

In fact the World Bank, the largest funder of water projects in the Global South, promotes reforms to publicly owned and operated utilities to improve their risk-return profiles for commercial investment. In other words, public institutions are restructured to absorb risk and shift costs to local communities in order to ensure greater extraction of private profit.

The Ontario legislation follows this model by dismantling municipal services and restructuring them into arm’s-length WCCs.

By removing water and sanitation services from local control, WCCs create a more streamlined system for profit generation. Key decisions — including finances, contracts and water rates — would be made by corporate boards with little direct accountability to communities.

Deepening existing inequities

Measures that generate value for shareholders will likely take precedence over public health and equity-related considerations.

As Brock University water management expert Lina Taing warns, the proposed consolidation of operations will ultimately undermine hard-won accountability provisions. It will also diminish the “site-specific knowledge” that is central to the multi-barrier approach developed in the aftermath of the Walkerton contaminated water crisis in May 2000.

The plan would take effect most immediately in Peel Region, one of the most racially diverse municipalities in the country. By 2029, jurisdiction over water and wastewater services will be transferred from Peel to its three lower-tier municipalities, which will then be required to deliver services exclusively through a newly created WCC.

The financial implications for Peel are deeply troubling. Water and wastewater infrastructure in Peel was built over decades with public funds. Under the new Ontario law, this infrastructure would be transferred to a WCC while Peel’s existing debt remains with the municipal government.

In other words, the assets are transferred while the liabilities stay behind. Peel will be left servicing legacy debt with no corresponding revenue stream, while revenues generated from water bills flow to WCC shareholders who bear no responsibility for that debt.

This is a textbook example of what scholars describe as risk socialization and profit privatization. Simply put, the public bears the burden while shareholders capture the reward.

Flint water crisis

In the words of American geographer Laura Pulido, racialized places often become the “testing ground for new forms of neoliberal practice.”

The Flint, Mich., water crisis also began with a state-level decision to place the city under emergency management.

The unelected city manager switched the city’s drinking water source to the highly contaminated Flint River as a cost-cutting measure, but failed to ensure the water was treated with corrosion inhibitors. This caused lead to leach from aging pipes and trihalomethanes (TTHMs) to form in tap water. TTHMs are a carcinogenic by-product formed when chlorine reacts with organic matter in water.

Likewise, ongoing challenges in First Nations communities underscore the inadequacies of top-down federal initiatives to resolve the drinking water crisis with blanket solutions that are inappropriate, inadequate or unacceptable to local communities.

A recent study found high concentrations of TTHMs in tap water samples from three Manitoba First Nations reserves as a result of treatment processes that weren’t suited to local environments and climate conditions.

Stripping communities of power

Both Bill 60 and Bill 98 align with broader efforts to expand the financialization of Ontario’s public infrastructure.

The Building Ontario Fund was established precisely for the purpose of including private capital in priority infrastructure projects. Unless challenged, the new legislation will strip communities of their power to shape services according to their needs, will make it easier to extract private wealth from public infrastructure and will erode the social mandates that make public water services central to building just, equitable and sustainable societies.

Experiences with water financialization in the United Kingdom and elsewhere show an intensified form of the harms associated with water privatization.

Water rates often rise sharply to generate returns for shareholders, while revenues are paid out as dividends instead of being reinvested in system maintenance and upgrades. Over time, this can erode environmental protections, social equity and labour rights.

The Ontario government is seeking public input on Bill 98 until this Thursday.

This is an opportunity for Ontario residents to join the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Canada Green Building Council, Environmental Defence Canada and many other organizations in demanding a better future for their water systems.

Meera Karunananthan sits on the boards of the Blue Planet Project and Peace Brigades International- Canada. They are both volunteer positions enabling her learn from and collaborate with water defenders, organizations and networks involved in frontline struggles for water justice around the world.

In central Seoul, South Korea, a motorway once covered a buried urban stream. Today, that same stretch has been uncovered – a process known as daylighting – and this river is home to plants, fish and insects. This flowing water cools the city in summer and attracts tens of thousands of people every day. What used to be concrete now boosts biodiversity, the local economy and community wellbeing.

Similar transformations are unfolding elsewhere.

In Christchurch, New Zealand, river habitats and wetlands were rebuilt after a major earthquake in 2011, guided in part by Māori knowledge of waterways and floodplains. In Vancouver, Canada, nature-based stormwater systems have been integrated into urban design through long-term collaboration with local First Nations.

Across the world, urban planning projects are beginning to take a different approach. One that designs with living freshwater systems, rather than trying to control and contain them.

In a new study, our international team of freshwater scientists and planning experts highlights that, while our towns and cities contain some of the world’s most degraded rivers, wetlands and ponds, they also provide huge opportunities for protecting and restoring freshwater wildlife.

Cities and towns have historically been designed with people in mind. Planning systems prioritise housing, transport, economic growth and flood defence – often treating rivers and streams as infrastructure rather than living ecosystems.

This hasn’t always been the case. Ancient civilisations, from the Indus to the Maya, built settlements around water. They worked with floods, wetlands and seasonal flows in ways that supported both people and nature. With the dawn of industrialisation and modern planning, floodplains were built on, rivers were straightened, streams buried and waterways increasingly engineered to move water through cities rather than support wildlife.

The consequences are stark and hard to ignore: degraded urban waterways, declining freshwater species, and whole cities are more vulnerable to climate-driven floods, heatwaves and water scarcity, contributing to a global collapse in freshwater biodiversity.

Our rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands occupy only a tiny fraction of the planet while supporting roughly a third of all vertebrate species. Importantly, freshwater acts as an ecological life-support system, sustaining a range of species – including us.

This is why the latest figures are so alarming. Freshwater vertebrate animals such as salmon and eel populations have fallen by 85% over the last 50 years. This is one of the steepest collapses of any group of species on Earth. Urban waterways sit at the heart of this rapid decline.

Movement to deal with this crisis has started. Countries have signed up to ambitious global agreements, pledging to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

But translating these promises into real change remains a major challenge.

Urban planners as allies

Urban planners shape the very environments where freshwater pressures are most intense – towns and cities. Every day, they make decisions affecting how land is zoned, how stormwater is managed, where green space goes, what buffers are protected, and how urban form evolves. Their actions ripple through entire catchments.

Yet most urban planners often aren’t supported or equipped with the ecological knowledge needed to incorporate freshwater biodiversity into daily practice.

Urban planners need the tools, training and support to recognise freshwater ecosystems as valuable living systems that underpin city resilience, human health and everyday wellbeing – rather than obstacles to be overcome.

In cities such as Breda in the Netherlands, Los Angeles in the US and Nanjing in China, this different way of thinking about freshwater is taking hold. And planners aren’t working alone.

Local residents and Indigenous communities, ecologists, engineers and even schools are often involved from the outset. Together, they bring diverse knowledge of the local context and can build a shared environmental stewardship. Early collaboration helps ensure freshwater biodiversity isn’t an afterthought and results in lasting care for rivers, ponds and wetlands.

Education matters too.

To foster this transition, silos between planning, ecology and engineering can be broken down. Land-use decisions can then be made with a clearer understanding of how water behaves across an entire catchment and how that shapes freshwater habitats.

Just as important is how knowledge flows. Freshwater biodiversity research doesn’t always reach the people making day-to-day planning decisions, or those designing and building projects on the ground. When planners, scientists and delivery teams have access to shared tools, open data or simple design guidance, nature-positive ideas are far more likely to make it off the page and into our cities.

Clear rules are also useful. Biodiversity targets only make a difference if they are backed up by practical local standards and the resources to implement them. For example, we need standards on how to protect riverbanks, restore floodplains or design stormwater systems that work with nature, rather than against it. Without that clarity – and the training and resources to support it – planners are often left trying to balance competing demands on their own.

There are still big gaps in what we know. How much space do urban rivers really need, and how does this vary from place to place? Which nature-based solutions work best across different landscapes? Urban planners can help answer these questions by learning from what works and using that knowledge to improve outcomes for freshwater biodiversity.

Urban planners – often working behind the scenes within local and devolved governments – are at the forefront of this transformation. They can embed freshwater biodiversity into the hearts of our cities.

However, planners cannot do this alone. Freshwater scientists, policymakers, river restoration specialists, engineers, social scientists and economists can work with planners. Universities and professional bodies can rethink how planning is taught. Governments can recognise planners as agents of ecological recovery, not just arbiters of urban growth.

Cities could become hubs for freshwater restoration and recovery, rather than hotspots of decline. They can become places where rivers, wetlands and people thrive together – with benefits that flow far beyond city boundaries.

Helen A. L. Currie receives funding from UKRI Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council Noise Network +.

Irene Gregory-Eaves receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.

Steven J Cooke receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. He is appointed as Canadian Commissioner for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.

School absenteeism is a major concern across Canada — and beyond.

As researchers with the Canadian School Attendance Partnership, we have been exploring this issue for a few years, motivated by concerns raised by families, community agencies and school districts.

Canada is one of the few countries without a clear national picture of school absenteeism.

We draw on pieces of data to get an informed estimate of this. Our data comes from the OECD’s global Programme for International Student Assessment, school district reports, news reports via freedom of information requests — and from research studies.

The most common international metric of “chronic absenteeism” refers to 10 per cent of missed instructional days in the year. Our figures suggest that across the provinces, figures range from 35 per cent to three-quarters of all students missing at least 10 per cent of instructional days annually.

Systemic barriers, mental health issues, insufficient school supports and intergenerational distrust of formal schooling are among the factors that intertwine to impact whether a student goes to school.

Need to disaggregate absenteeism data

But the story of absenteeism lies in part in the disaggregation of this data. Students with disabilities, those who are Indigenous and those who identify as 2SLGBTQI are among the most likely to miss school.

Many students with disabilities who miss school are not even counted in absenteeism data. They may experience informal exclusions via being sent home for behavioural reasons or may be placed on part-time schedules.

They are also suspended at higher rates — all of which results in them missing hours of social interaction and classroom instruction.

Factors pertaining to disability, mental health

The problem must also be understood amid the ongoing child and youth mental-health crisis.

Population research suggests roughly 70 per cent of Canadian students have experienced a decline in at least one area of mental health since 2020 and poor mental health is a well-known risk factor for absenteeism.

Different patterns of mental health have been uniquely associated with school absence: for example, anxiety and depression tend to be linked to school avoidance, whereas behaviours like aggression are more often associated with school exclusion and suspensions.

Children and youth with neurodevelopmental disabilities, such as ADHD and autism, are at a particularly high risk. These risks are cumulative, so that children with multiple mental-health challenges experience the most absences and impairments in daily functioning.

Read more: Many autistic students are denied a full education — here’s what we need for inclusive schools

Research indicates that increased absenteeism can worsen existing mental-health challenges and vice versa.

While Canadian research is limited, data from other countries suggests contexts like family strain, socioeconomic disadvantage, sleep disruption, bullying and loneliness likely underlie the connection between absenteeism and mental health.

Absenteeism and academic achievement

School absenteeism, and its disproportionate rates for some student populations, is particularly worrisome given the powerful connections that exist between it and academic achievement.

Beyond access to classroom instruction and assessment, students who are chronically absent miss out on programs, peer connections, mentorship opportunities and school-based services.

These “missing links” impact students’ success and development — crucial for students with needs that put them at risk for poor academic outcomes.

New Brunswick, Ontario approach

Educators and leaders in different school districts across Canada understand the issues raised by absenteeism and are taking a variety of approaches to address them.

New Brunswick mounted a multi-tiered system of supports including school-based protocols and progressive strategies that include family and community partnerships.

In Ontario, the Ministry of Education recently shared its concerns about levels of school attendance, acknowledging the key link with academic achievement.

In response, the province has proposed legislation to make attendance worth 10-15 per cent of the final course mark in Grades 9 to 12. Students whose absences are approved by their family will not be penalized.

Is this approach likely to work? For the students with disabilities and mental health needs, not likely. Here are some reasons why.

Could students really attend if they chose?

Research provides minimal support for how effective incentives are in boosting attendance unless these are accompanied by broader reforms and targeted supports.

Incentives assume attendance is primarily a motivational issue — that students could attend if they chose to. But this isn’t always the case: think, for example, about a student who is kept home to watch younger siblings while a parent goes to work.

Attaching marks to attendance tends to benefit students already well-positioned to attend. Policies that rely on incentives risk shifting responsibility onto students rather than strengthening the conditions that make attendance possible.

What families say about complex reasons

Many of the families we have encountered in our research describe complex interactions between disabilities and mental-health needs that prevent their children from attending.

Parents may withdraw their child because of concerns about the learning or social environment, or their child may be sent home because of an educational assistant calling in sick or because of school concerns about student behaviour.

These students are also far more likely to be suspended and face various disciplinary consequences.

A narrow, grades-based approach to improving attendance fails to account for these students at best, and penalizes them at worst.

Problems with excused absences

Although the Ontario policy specifies that excused absences won’t affect grades, there’s strong evidence that all students are not equally likely to have absences formally excused.

Access to medical care, parental availability and resources, familiarity with school processes and relationships with schools all influence whether an absence is recorded as excused.

As a result, attendance-based grading policies can unintentionally compound existing inequities rather than reduce them.

Big-picture approaches

Effective approaches to increase attendance require a mix of systemic, big-picture approaches and student and family-focused solutions.

Collecting and sharing data that tells the different stories of student absences in a variety of ways can guide interventions.

Creating school environments that meaningfully include and support learning for all students, socially and academically, is key — these also need to prioritize relationships between students, families, educators and broader communities.

Accountability for absenteeism needs to be expanded beyond students, families and schools to include the broader societal resources that affect absenteeism for students with disabilities and others — resources like housing, social services, transportation and access to health care.

Absenteeism is not an individual but a societal issue. Solutions need to address the multiple layers in which students are embedded to have a chance of reversing this problem.

Jess Whitley receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

David Smith receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Natasha McBrearty receives funding from Vanier, a research grant from the government of Canada.

Maria Rogers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives set April 21, 2026, as the date to hear from and question top Pentagon officials Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, and Gen. Dagvin R.M. Anderson, head of U.S. Africa Command, about the war in Iran. But Republican legislators put off the hearing for a month, giving up – for now – the opportunity to exercise oversight of the war.

Adam Smith, the top Democratic member of the House Armed Services Committee, told The New York Times, “We are six weeks into this conflict. And we still haven’t gotten a public briefing from anyone in the administration about the war.”

President Donald Trump’s military campaign against the Iranian regime is currently in a ceasefire. Despite the low approval rating of the war, the president has not drawn the conflict to a close, and the result of the operation is so far unclear.

The postponed hearing was only one example of how Congress has been noticeably meek about the war, with most Republicans killing the many Democratic efforts to exercise constitutionally granted power over engaging in such military conflicts. For the fourth time, the Senate on April 16, 2026, rejected a war powers resolution.

As scholars who research war powers and have a book coming out about President Barack Obama’s decision-making about the Afghan war, we know that the reluctance of Congress to assert its power is, in fact, history repeating itself, as is the president’s unilateral action.

Historically meek Congress

Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war, not the president. But most modern presidents and their legal counsel have asserted that Article 2 of the Constitution allows the president to use the military in certain situations without prior congressional approval – and have acted on that, sending troops into conflicts from Panama to Libya with no regard for Congress’ will.

Based on the 1973 War Powers Resolution – passed over President Richard Nixon’s veto – the president has an obligation to inform Congress about his actions within 48 hours of initiating military action and requires him to seek legislative authorization if the military operation will last over 60 days.

Since its passage, presidents have dutifully informed Congress within the 48-hour window when they unilaterally initiate military operations. Typically, they use the following language: “Pursuant to” their power as commander in chief and chief executive, they are initiating an operation.

Yet presidents since Nixon have never formally acknowledged the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution. They have, however, mentioned it in their letters to Congress about their actions, and for the most part they have abided by its restrictions. So language is crucial and presidents tend to use the phrase “consistent with” the War Powers Resolution when they inform Congress about military operations.

The second Trump administration has broken with that standard. In Trump’s message to Congress about the Iran war, sent on March 2 2026, he did not acknowledge the War Powers Resolution or the Constitution, let alone pay lip service to either.

Instead, Trump has sidestepped the traditional use of the War Powers Resolution – and avoided the congressional oversight that comes with it – by relying on executive orders to convey his intent to use military power against the Iranian regime. That move, whether legal or not, has provided the president with a great deal of freedom to decide what the military can do, what tools they can use to do it and how long they can do it. His decision to send another carrier group and the addition of thousands of U.S. troops to the region is just the latest example.

Congress has proved incapable or unwilling to check this presidential unilateralism. Shortly after the start of the military campaign against Iran, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy introduced war powers legislation to constrain Trump that failed to pass the Senate. In the House on March 5, members narrowly rejected a resolution to impede a broader or longer operation.

To a meaningful extent, we are watching history repeat itself: Over the past seven decades during times of war, members of Congress have not wanted to act, and presidents have not wanted to ask permission.

From alacrity to deference

Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt made their case for war and obtained a formal declaration from Congress within three days in 1917 and within the same afternoon in 1941, respectively.

Since the start of the Korean War, however, members of Congress have demonstrated more deference and less assertiveness.

In Korea, President Truman did not get congressional authorization for the war.

Following North Korea’s invasion of the South in June 1950, Truman bypassed Congress, making his case for war to the United Nations Security Council. In July 1950, United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 “authorized the United States to establish and lead a unified command comprised of all military forces from UN member states, and authorized that command to operate under the UN flag.”

Truman’s rhetoric about American combat operations on the Korean peninsula being part of a U.N. “police action” became increasingly tenuous, but he managed to avoid seeking congressional permission. In doing so, Truman created a precedent in which a congressional declaration of war was no longer necessary for the American military to carry out combat operations. Sen. Robert Taft, a Republican, opposed this lack of congressional deliberation, declaring that Truman’s actions represented a “usurpation” of the war powers authority.“ But Congress did nothing to stop the war as the tactical and strategic picture in Korea stalemated.

In Vietnam, in the aftermath of the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident – a purported attack by the North Vietnamese on American naval vessels that did not, in fact, occur – President Lyndon Johnson used the alleged crisis to push for congressional authorization for the escalation of force in Southeast Asia.

Johnson presented the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to Congress, which quickly passed it. The resolution allowed Johnson to freely escalate American military involvement in Southeast Asia with a vague authorization to engage militarily as he saw fit, in contrast to the very clear declarations of war that came before it for previous wars.

Col. Harry G. Summers, who wrote an influential strategic analysis of the Vietnam War, points to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution as evidence that the relevant actors – the executive, Congress and the military – failed to foresee the scale of the course of action they were embarking on.

The resolution significantly increased the president’s freedom of action – and freedom from oversight – and marked a major step toward the Americanization and escalation of the war in July 1965. Despite the deeply troubled engagement in South Vietnam and the passage of the War Powers Resolution, we still see presidents acting alone, without consulting members of Congress, let alone getting authorization.

Refusing responsibility

In Summers’ Vietnam postmortem, he relates a telling anecdote of a professor at West Point. The professor, an Army officer, remarked, "When people ask me why I went to Vietnam I say, ‘I thought you knew. You sent me,’” a comment indicative of “the civilian sector’s growing refusal to take responsibility for the kind of army it needs.”

In the case of Trump’s decision-making concerning hostilities with Iran, Americans will one day need answers to the questions: Why did the United States engage in this war with unclear political objectives? And why did Congress allow it to continue?

This story contains material from an article published on March 6, 2026.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.