So you thought you could sulk in public that quietly did you?

Stephen Mandel, Mayor of Edmonton just lost a bid to divest the city of the 8 Billion dollar sewer system and roll it into the hands of the city owned, but not city controlled, utility, Epcor, or as my dad likes to call them Epron. He lost 6-7 and upon losing berated his fellow councillors both in chambers and in print saying among other things, "There's some councillors who believe that government should do everything."

Wrong.

Those 7 councillors, including the right winger of the bunch, Mike Nickel, understand two things: If you privatise a natural monopoly, you then get to enjoy monopoly pricing, like when the city privatised Ed Tel and when the province de-regulated the electrical industry. So those things which require incredible amounts of capital to purchase and which there's no sense in building a duplicate of, like power, water, and heat grids. Should not be sold.

But wait it gets better. Mayor Mandel has now called for an audit into the sewer system. So let me get this straight. Stephen Mandel is cock sure that the privatisation of the sewer sysem is a brilliant idea, but he hadn't had an audit done? This has got to be the greatest expression of vindictiveness matched with stupidity I have seen in city politics, but then again I haven't been around that long. Stephen, Stephen, Stephen...

Every auditor finds some sort of disturbing accounting in the books of a major corporation, so you do the audit first then point to a 'shocking lapse in accountability' and then privatise the service. It also doesn't hurt if you have council raise the drainage rates to make up for a budgetary short fall so that you colaim that the high prices are the result of government waste.

Also, appoint a head of the department and then give him just enough transparent expense account to hang himself with it. It's so easy. I'm glad I'm not out to privatise the sewer system.

Besides it's government's job to take crap from other people that they had nothing to do with in the first place. If the people have shown anything it's that they believe that the government is responsible for all of the shit in their lives.

Until next time, this is Ed Mc Mahon, Center Square!

"Put the bottle down Sean."

Okay.