The Hamilton East MP is chairing a new Water Watch committee, a coalition of labour, environmental, nationalist and church groups that bought a full-page Spectator ad Saturday calling on residents to contact city councillors to "help bring Hamilton's water back under public control."

Copps told a City Hall news conference yesterday that, "when private profit is the main motive, you cut corners and you put public health at risk."

Water Watch was spawned after council's public works committee voted 6-3 last week to seek a new 10-year contract rather than take back operations privatized by the former regional council in 1994. Source.