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Avi Lewis: Canada's airports are not for sale (www.ndp.ca)
submitted 1 month ago by to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[+] -8 points 1 month ago (10 children)

I've never understood why folks think that 'preserving jobs' is a reason to not pursue a government policy. If it gets in the way of increasing productivity, it just means that wage increases stop. The only reason why autoworkers make so much money is because of all the robots that work besides them. And it's those robots that have dramatically cut the size of the human work force--not exporting jobs to Canada or China.

Also, Avi Lewis purports to be someone who is a radical with regard to the Climate Emergency. But the dramatic increase of frivolous air travel is one of the biggest and most intractable sources of CO2. Why should he be so concerned about keeping the price of air travel low for the masses? After all, wasn't the whole point of the carbon tax to discourage carbon-intensive behaviour (like flying all over the planet to go on holidays)?

Carney has said that he wants to use the capital liberated by selling off the four biggest airports to build-up other aspects of the Canadian public transit system (including smaller airports). So he increases the cost of flying between Toronto and Ottawa or Quebec city by 10% and then uses the capital raised to support a high-speed rail system between these cities, and then builds a regional traditional passenger rail and bus network that feeds into that high-speed rail system (like GO Transit does in Ontario). Obviously a nefarious scheme by the Carney government to destroy the working class.

I joined the NDP to support Avi Lewis' vision of a grassroots-based party built around consciousness-raising and building local base communities. Instead, all I see is the same old tired nonsense.

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  • [–] 23 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    What a poor take on Avi’s opposition to privatization of Canadian infrastructure. I can’t think of a single instance of selling public infrastructure to American equity or hedge funds that has worked out. Keeping travel costs down is not the main reason, however it may be an argument for the general public to understand. Carney’s whole investment summit is a nightmare. Selling of the Canadian Wheat Board was a bad idea. Selling Connaught Labs was a bad idea. Even selling the Oil Sands to American operators was a bad idea. Selling any successful Canadian enterprise is a bad idea, particularly to American hedge funds.

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  • [–] 22 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    I can’t think of a single instance of selling public infrastructure to American equity or hedge funds that has worked out.

    Or even selling public infrastructure to any private entity, American or not.

    When something is privatized, there is a new incentive added - that the formerly public thing starts earning a profit for the new owner.

    A profit that needs to grow annually.

    And that leads to reduction of service, reduction of staff, deferred maintenance, nickle-and-dimeing new "service" fees, and a general loss of accountability to the public.

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  • [–] 15 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    What you argue can be done without privatization — and in fact CAN’T be done via privatization unless the corporation is a monopoly that controls the entire transportation market. Which is exactly what a government is.

    All Carney has to do is put a tax on use of airports, and use that money to fund LRT. In fact, that’s already what some airport improvement fees go towards, despite their name.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    All Carney has to do is put a tax on use of airports, and use that money to fund LRT.

    The problem with that is there will be pressure from the Conservatives to cut the taxes and then the LRT ends up being stranded without a funding source. Does that sound plausible to you? It certainly does for me.

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Yeah, the "losing jobs" explanation is bullshit. BUT, I still am not comfortable with the privatisation. A crown corp can still be operated WHILE profiting off stuff. Want to raise revenue to support new HSR? Raise the expected profit margins for the crown corps.

    As for "liberating capital", well that makes sense if we're talking about a private corp, whose fundraising capacity is low. But when it comes to a well managed COUNTRY like Canada, you can raise funds very easily and cheaply.

    You don't have to sell off critical infrastructure to do that.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    It's quite true that according to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) that the government can simply create the money to build things like transit. But the political culture of Canada is that this can't possibly be true---so the Conservatives would fight tooth and nail against it. If something remains a Crown Corporation there is inevitably pressure to politicize it. But selling it to the private sector, the new owners get to own whatever anger comes from users--not the government.

    This is the core problem with the Leftist idea of government ownership of everything. If we do that, then business decisions start getting made for political reasons--which destroys the efficiency of businesses. And this sucks the productivity out of the economy. And that makes workers poor. And that gets us back to the 'losing jobs' aspect of what Lewis was saying. I'm much more in favour of Social Democracy where business is business and government is government--and government is there to firmly regulate business and make sure that it doesn't abuse people or the environment.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    So you argue:

    Government owned corps means that politics gets involved in the management of the corp which leads to inefficiencies. Ideas that sound politically popular (while not necessarily being logical) get executed over ideas that are logical.

    But to this I argue, we already exist in a system where the state exists. If a state can regulate a market, it already means that it can regulate corporations by passing whatever laws it wants. Meaning, legally speaking, a state doesn't even need to own a corporation to execute its will.

    Let's look at a scenario. Lewis comes to power. The rail companies aren't owned by the government. However, Lewis knows he'll get more votes if all rail workers get a raise of 20%. Hence, Lewis's NDP passes a new piece of legislation WITHOUT even owning the rail companies called "Critical infrastructure labor investment plan". Basically, it mandates rail workers among others a minimum wage 1.2x that of the federal minimum wage.

    As long as the state exists, and as long as it is popular, it still can kinda do whatever it wants in this context.

    Hence, while your argument isn't wrong per say, the dangers it points at already exist. The fact that something like this isn't happening in the market is evidence enough, isn't it?

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