Privatization vs. Public Interest

Reckless privatization of lands, through sales, long-term leases, and the elimination of regulations, is one of the things Dogwood Initiative has always resisted, in our effort to help British Columbians achieve sustainability and increased local control of their lands and communities.

Most of our work, such as our first success, the 1999 campaign to save public lands, opposes the sell-off of public assets, but is not specifically directed at privatization. In response to calls from people like you, concerned about the breadth of the drive to hand the public interest to a handful of corporations, we have launched a grass roots campaign about privatization, with a website, bc4sale.org.

When we launched this new website in 2004, we created a democracy page, since we realized that at the core of our vision for BC is the interaction between the public and the government. We foster the active engagement of communities in the management of their local environment and economy. Privatization can undermine this vision of civil society, and the current record of privatization is a disturbing trend.

(See more on our approach to privatization.)