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Chris Selley: Defending the mediocrity of Canadian airports is no righteous cause

Airports are a private-sector experience from curb to gate. So why publicly own their tens of billions of dollars of profitable real estate?

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The New Democrats are furious at news the federal government is, in its own words, “assessing opportunities to unlock the full value of airports in support of investments in Canada’s long-term growth, including through alternative models of ownership.” It’s what normal human beings call privatization.

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“The government should be protecting our public airports, not selling them off for parts,” said federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis, employing a metaphor that makes no sense in this context. You sell a machine off for parts when it won’t work anymore and you don’t want to pay to fix it; Lewis is trying to tell us that the private sector would ruin our airports, implying that they run rather well as it stands, which at least several absolutely do not.

Chris Selley: Defending the mediocrity of Canadian airports is no righteous cause Back to video

“Privatization … drives up costs for the public, quality suffers, and workers always end up paying the price,” Lewis told reporters last week.

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