Canadian Workers Are Unwittingly Funding Bolsonaro’s Water Privatization
Bolsonaro’s right-wing government has auctioned off Rio de Janeiro’s water system to the private sector. Canadian pension funds used millions of dollars of workers’ savings to take over the formerly state-run utility.
Under President Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian national development bank’s mandate has been to guarantee as many privatizations as possible. (EVARISTO SA / AFP via Getty Images)
Canadian pension funds are using over $900 million of Canadian workers’ money to privatize water in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Through the perverse logic of the market, Canadian workers’ pension funds will now work to exacerbate inequality in a country where access to clean water and sanitation is already limited.
Iguá Saneamento, a private Brazilian water and sewage service company, has been bought by Canada Pension Plan and Alberta’s pension fund AIMCo. The company currently operates eighteen long-term concession contracts in five Brazilian states, providing services for more than six million people.
In an auction on April 30, Iguá bid to take over the state of Rio de Janeiro’s publicly owned water system. It was the capital from Canadian workers’ pension funds that made this acquisition possible.
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