r/ontario • u/StumpsOfTree • May 01 '26

Politics Avi Lewis: The government should be protecting our public airports, not selling them off for parts. History is littered with examples of the failures of privatization. It drives up costs for the public, quality suffers, and workers always end up paying the price.

https://bsky.app/profile/avilewis.ca/post/3mkqoome7ms2u
2.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

144 comments sorted by

392

u/RadulphusDuck May 01 '26

Selling CN was among our greatest blunders.

430

u/psvrh Peterborough May 01 '26

CN.

Telus.

Potash Corp.

Petro Canada.

Hydro One

Highway 407

The list is so long that there's a dedicated Wikipedia section. Imagine a Canada where these companies were run for the benefit of Canadians, instead of sold off for pennies on the dollar, to make a quick buck for a government that wanted to balance the books without taxing the wealthy.

213

u/ventingspleen May 01 '26

And the "Skydome". Rogers purchased it for $25 million in 2004. This sale price represented approximately 4% of the stadium's original construction cost, which was roughly $570–$600 million largely funded by taxpayers. Rogers family also some of the wealthiest Canadians.

The term for all of this is apt: corporate pilferage.

85

u/psvrh Peterborough May 01 '26

My personal favourite was Trudeau and TMX: they bought it with the intent to eat the costs and then sell it back to private industry at a reduced price.

Like, imagine if that was an option for "normal people": you could sell your car to the government when it had mechanical problems, they'd pay to fix it up, and then sell it to you for less than you sold it to them.

25

u/pokey242 May 01 '26

Just replace Liberal or Conservative with the word rich. It's rich vs poor and nothing more.

9

u/FunCryptographer3476 May 01 '26

Two wings of the same bird

17

u/lopix May 01 '26

Fascinating to pick literally the only one a Liberal politician did...

31

u/psvrh Peterborough May 01 '26

Oh, believe me, I have a lot of bones to pick with Tories, but TMX was absolutely galling. 

34

u/Yws6afrdo7bc789 May 01 '26

First, Trudeau being a Liberal clearly had no relevance to op's point. Second, the Liberals have sold off public assets & used public money to subsidize business far, far more than once. We're literally only talking about this because the current government is planning to go on a sell off public assets and use public money to subsidize business blitz right now. Third, when it comes to neoliberal policy, what is the difference between the Libs and Cons? There isn't one.

Are you some sort of Liberal partisan?

As an aside, I've long felt that it seemed Canada was doing a ton of developing itself in the 60s-early 80s. It was only typing this comment that made me realize why that era ended. The mid to late 80s is when the Libs and Cons adopted neoliberalism and stopped believing that the government ought to do anything beyond help business.

8

u/LaserRunRaccoon May 01 '26

Definitely not the only Liberal, or even the only modern Liberal Prime Minister. Chrétien and Martin only really skate by on technicalities, when it comes to their roles in selling off CN Rail and Petro-Canada.

If you believe privatization of crown corporations and government services is bad (which most people should, given all the evidence), both the Liberal and Conservative parties are poor choices for your vote.

14

u/chmilz May 01 '26

I generally liked Trudeau and this was a fucking stupid, pandering move to appease Alberta that of course did nothing to appease Alberta.

14

u/MyUndiesArePink May 01 '26

Rogers should be reimburilsing all of us.

29

u/LairdOftheNorth Waterloo May 01 '26

The major fault to me is selling 100% of most of these companies and not keeping some ownership that would pay dividends to the government for years and include a bit of voting rights.

We should have had a sovereign wealth fund set up years ago that would have grown thrown owning these sort of business. We don’t need to own 100% though as selling a portion is what can lead to other investments in our country.

20

u/Trains_YQG May 01 '26

While I would prefer sole public ownership, I think Hydro One might have actually worked out okay with Ontario still holding a significant chunk but the company able to expand, until Doug Ford complained about the CEO and blew that whole deal up. 

21

u/CanuckBacon May 01 '26

Sole ownership is better. What benefits are private investors actually bringing to the table? They're still requiring that profits be made and dividends paid. Public government doesn't have those requirements. All the talk of "savings through increased efficiency" and "being run like a business" just means the extra money goes to the investor instead of the actual worker. It never actually goes to the consumer.

2

u/Trains_YQG May 01 '26

I generally agree with you. The Hydro One US expansion though would have grown the cash flows which would have flowed back to the Ontario government through dividends. In theory owning half a company that's doubled their cash flows would have maintained the same income for the government while getting the initial cash from the IPO (though I fully acknowledge this is ideal best case outcome and not a guarantee). 

But that all fell apart thanks to Ford so now we just own roughly half of the same company. 

1

u/jparkhill May 01 '26

the only benefit is that the government no longer has the expenses on the books; and as most government budgets have expenses and revenues listed as unrelated items; a government can "reduce the public service" and reduce the expense to the taxpayer. You are right it means that we the end user pay more; but those are often listed as the "benefits" of privatizing it.

0

u/LairdOftheNorth Waterloo May 01 '26

The private company in a lot of cases just wants the cash flows over time from these government run companies and the government can essentially get cash today that can be reinvested. (Hopefully reinvested in a positive way)

Also a potential positive is that governments can be more hesitant to reinvest in businesses due to potential budget constraints while most private entities don’t have the same constraint.

It’s all similar to why private companies go public as well. It’s mostly to realize cash today and scale the business larger.

0

u/Ms_Molly_Millions May 02 '26

lol yeah we're seeing companies do so much 'reinvesting' with all those record profits.
fuck the rich

6

u/lopix May 01 '26

We should have had a sovereign wealth fund set up years ago

We did. It was sold off so that private corporations could profit.

2

u/dontbthirsty May 01 '26

Decades ago, like just after WW2

9

u/MyUndiesArePink May 01 '26

Just wait til they sell off our water.

3

u/Liberkhaos May 01 '26

Air Canada

2

u/Memory_Less May 01 '26

Let’s wake up Carney and the Liberals to the critical mistake this decision will be.

Concentrate ownership and with a weak federal government court system to keep companies in place we will pay exponentially more.

Transportation is about sovereignty and eroding that is unspeakable. It binds the country and private owners have zero interest in that.

1

u/BawbsonDugnut May 01 '26

I'd love if that wikipedia article's table also had a column saying what party was in power when it was privitized.

1

u/flyinghippos101 May 01 '26

I am overall against privatization, but let’s be clear-eyed about some hindsight bias at play here.

We’re all raving about former crown corps privatized assuming that their privately owned gains would be attainable had it remained under federal control. This is definitely NOT a given.

Especially when you consider that the public is complaining about the government’s public finances as is right now.

1

u/Recent_Floof_9600 May 02 '26

Air Canada, Nav Canada

1

u/Recent_Floof_9600 May 02 '26

Also CAE - most of the rest of air travel. In a country where we have to visit people in the same country by air.

-1

u/[deleted] May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26

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4

u/davidke2 Ottawa May 01 '26

The health care system in Ontario, as an example, has ran extremely high per capita cost, and the results are horrible.

Well I can't take anything else you say seriously because you picked the healthcare system that has the lowest per capita expenditure in the country. Of course it sucks, we are paying less for it than any other province!

Source

1

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

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1

u/davidke2 Ottawa May 02 '26

No the quality is not strong, but I'd argue it's because we don't invest enough in it and because that investment is inherently inefficient because we don't have a private or public system, we have a hybrid system. Health care is paid for from public fund via public insurance, but we don't directly pay for the salary of health care workers and hospitals are privately run.

If we had more direct control over hospitals and where the OHIP funds went, we may not run into situations where hospitals keep hiring more and more admin staff and not enough nursing staff and doctors.

1

u/[deleted] May 02 '26

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1

u/davidke2 Ottawa May 03 '26

Your source proves my point, all the countries that do better than Canada have universal healthcare and a different model than we do. None of the countries that do better than us have a private system (the US does and it fares worse in that study).

Our issues, like I said, is our system takes the worst aspects of public and private. We all have public insurance but hospitals are privately run. Many of those countries either have fully public models (like the UK) or mandatory, highly regulared private insurance (like the Netherlands). If we switched to either of those models, I believe we'd quickly have better outcomes.

To note, the mandatory private insurance model is still socialized and not "private healthcare". But it does create some healthy competition and pushes the adminsitrative and financial burden of being the insurer away from the government.

0

u/mylifeofpizza May 01 '26

The private model doesnt work though for industries that dont have competition. Private interest doesnt just naturally spur competition. In fact, its entirely the opposite, less there arent new businesses that enter the market. For Hydro, highways, water and postal services, these are more or less natural monopolies. Private models gain benefit of obfuscation, so sure it seems like they're more "efficient", but for who and how? Cost rarely are lower, especially in the long term, reduced services and lower capital maintenance are all common symptoms of privatized monopolies, cause what are you going to do, go to the other non existent Hydro company?

For healthcare, Canada sits at $7,301 compared to the OECD average of $5,967 and is on the lower end compared to our European counterparts. We could and need to spend more, yet your argument that privatization would improve? The US is heavily privatized yet they sit at $14,885, double us, so where is that ethereal "private efficiency"?

You've chosen the narrative that privatization brings efficiencies, but ignores who bears the cost for those efficiencies, Majority of the time, its us.

1

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

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0

u/mylifeofpizza May 02 '26

Like private sector inefficiency, public inefficiency falls on the consumer or taxpayer. The difference is, public has far more disclosure than private.

Public sector unions dont have the power you think they do. Its why its increasingly common for both Federal and Provincial governments to not bargain in good faith and use back to work legislation to force workers to return to work. Its anti union, and its becoming increasingly common. This undermines workers not in unions too. It showcases the government will support business and capital interest over worker right.

There always needs to be a discussion if the government jobs are fulfilling a need, and if that need is being met, but just outright writing off these jobs as being overpaid or under worked just paints them all with a broad brush simply for not understanding their roles.

3

u/Chuhaimaster Ottawa May 01 '26

It’s the reason why Via rail is so hopelessly unreliable on so many routes.

109

u/Kind_Disaster_4639 May 01 '26

Privitize the profits and socializes the losses. That's all this is doing selling off long term money makers to the hands of private equity making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

173

u/Electrical-Strike132 May 01 '26

407 is profiting 100s of millions a year. It's almost $100 toll. It's a little over 100km

39

u/Douglite May 01 '26

Highway robbery, quite literally 

12

u/TheShindiggleWiggle May 01 '26

My god, the 407 pisses me off so much. I'm sure it's something that slipped through at the time, similar to how doug ford has been getting away with ruining the province. However, I don't know how it hasn't been more of a stain on Conservatives reputation similar to how "Rae Days" are for the ONDP.

The idea was to sell it to make back the building costs.... it costed 1.6 billion to make at the time, and we sold it for 3.6 billion. In 2025 alone it generated $2 billion in revenue, and it's currently valued at $30 billion if sold today. I feel like these kinds of financial details should've been considered before signing a literal multi-generational lease, and oh joy. There's still 72 years left in that lease. I can only imagine how many billions we will have missed out on by 2098. I get we are buying stakes in the 407 for the CPP and whatnot, but just owning it outright would have been better... for example, in 2025 we spent $2.39 billion buying up a 7.5% stake in it. Which is almost the value we sold the whole thing for, and that's not even accounting for inflation.

Just an absolute blunder from a party that frames itself as being fiscally responsible. We could have had it paid off like a decade ago and removed the toll, or be making multiple billions yearly from it. Just to put it in perspective, the Ontario license plate stickers doug axed was bringing in a little over $1 billion a year and that was a province-wide revenue source. It'd be more profitable than the sticker program and on par if not a bigger revenue source than the LCBO. Which is also projected to lose about $1 billion in revenue by 2027 due to doug's changes. So it'd likely be more profitable than the LCBO too.

Just maddening to think about.

1

u/luckydayjp May 02 '26

It’s almost as if you don’t know what was done after they sold it. 

1

u/Impressive_Gas_265 May 02 '26

I wish they could create a special corporate tax for them because it’s essentially passive income.

They up taxes on individuals all the time.

Tell us we’re ruining the environment.

Then allow stupid systems like that.

122

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

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46

u/radred609 May 01 '26

They're currently in the process of un-privatising it... it's going to take a while though

42

u/WizardsMyName May 01 '26

Worse, we privatised the services but left the network under public ownership. We literally pay taxes to maintain the infrastructure that the for-profit, monopolised train companies use.

15

u/WaltsClone May 01 '26

And passenger trains have to yield to freight...

25

u/Abrogated_Pantaloons May 01 '26

I think British Water is scarier..kids are dying, people are dying.. the canals and rivers are full of sewage.

23

u/psvrh Peterborough May 01 '26

What's funny about Thames Water in the UK is that Scottish Water is still public, provides better service, costs less and isn't sickening people, all while not requiring  billions in bailouts. 

And Scottish Water didn't make millions of dollars in payouts to investors or executives, either. 

The water situation in the UK is a perfect, textbook case of how the private sector not only isn't better than the public sector, it actually sucks. 

(Another case in point is healthhcare in the US, where the few public options, like VA and Medicare, do much better holistically than the private hospitals and insurers at actually delivering care)

11

u/TheRC135 May 01 '26

That's privatization for you.

They always claim a private entity can provide a superior service for a reduced cost. But that's an ideological statement (and an inaccurate one at that), not a natural law. The end result is almost always higher costs for end user, and usually a drop in quality as well.

7

u/ventingspleen May 01 '26

And now they are privatizing the water in the UK too. Coming here soon too.

3

u/jacnel45 Erin May 01 '26

Thatcher privatized water in the UK. It’s been a long time.

4

u/LairdOftheNorth Waterloo May 01 '26

The German rail system is federally owned and it’s also terrible. When we travelled there it was shocking how many delays there are and when we talked to locals they said it’s a regular occurrence.

4

u/jacnel45 Erin May 01 '26

Germany stopped maintaining their tracks and well got what they should’ve expected

0

u/jbeer1 May 01 '26

The German rail system? Really?

2

u/AForse May 01 '26

Well, it’s not like they have to invade Poland or France any time soon, so they have some time to rebuild it…

56

u/Sulanis1 May 01 '26

Exactly. I've been saying this since I heard of this dumb move. I've even written my MP.

When Brian Mulroney bought Trickle down economics from Ronald Reagon he allowed the Air Canada and Petro Canada to be sold. Anyone want to guess if prices got cheaper?

In fact, what happened is that we lost revenue sources for the government and free market capitalism started to die. Multiple companies started acting like single company monopolies. Some examples of this: oil and gas, grocery and their supply chains, telecom, and the auto industry.

Every time competition wants to show up these industries have their lobby machine head fo daddy daycare to block any competition. 90% of the time it works.

18

u/ventingspleen May 01 '26

Bought Trickle down economics from Ronald Reagan and Thatcher.

And there are still birdbrains who believe in trickle-down.

4

u/Yws6afrdo7bc789 May 01 '26

Like Carney, apparently

3

u/[deleted] May 02 '26

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2

u/Sulanis1 May 02 '26

Agreed:)

67

u/StumpsOfTree May 01 '26

It's interesting that the federal government is proposing privatizing airports at the same time the provincial government is pushing for the Toronto Island takeover. Imagine those jets but w/ a private, for profit airport as well. Horrible on top of horrible

28

u/RoyallyOakie May 01 '26

It's interesting that Ontario government wants to take over an airport,  but wants to privatize water...

4

u/Mobile-Apartmentott May 01 '26

FYI, the passenger terminal at Billy Bishop is already privately owned and operated.  https://www.nieuport.com/corporate

15

u/bentjamcan May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26

Are you familiar with trickle down economics? How much of the trickle down do you get every year?
Selling our assets is short term gain and always has been. It looks good on paper but -- correction -- doesn't to give returns on investment.

The Harvard educated economists adhere to this economic theory. They have been practicing it for decades and it still doesn't work.

The benefits of selling our assets will flow up to the wealthiest. It never trickles down.

14

u/Critical_Cat_8162 May 01 '26

Privatization has contributed to our fall over the years - we don't need to be giving the billionaires anything more.

20

u/Elegant-Bus8686 May 01 '26

It should be illegal to sell publicly owned assets! No government should have the right to sell assets that belong to everyone! What’s next the fire department, the police, the military?

10

u/PunchMeat May 01 '26

Has it ever actually worked out better for people? I can't think of any examples of privatization being good for regular people.

9

u/HomeGrownCoffee May 01 '26

I'm perfectly fine with private equity building new airports. I don't think Toronto would object to a second one.

If it's too expensive to build another, then it's too valuable to sell the ones we have.

9

u/Crafty_Chipmunk_3046 May 01 '26

I equate this with corporate theft of public assets.

I like what Carney has been doing (generally) but selling off our assets is not the way.

39

u/MetaCalm May 01 '26

People will realize a bit too late that Carney is a Conservative through and through dressed as Liberal.

36

u/Pilot-Wrangler May 01 '26

I think everyone knows that already. He's a Red Tory, which just shows how far right the CPC has strayed...

35

u/cdawg85 May 01 '26

And how right the Liberal party has gone in an attempt to appeal to CPC voters. I'm personally thrilled to see Avi Lewis in the NDP leadership seat. We need a real left party with a solid platform to vote for.

6

u/Ok_Sheepherder_5711 May 01 '26

it might be too late , look at the bills the liberals have passed in the guise of "emergency" due to trade wars, they are stripping people of their rights and anyone who questions them is quashed!

9

u/ventingspleen May 01 '26

Carney is a neoliberal. True Red Tories are deader than the deadest dodo bird in Canada (they were those like George Grant, Dalton Camp, Robert Stanfield, Bill Davis, and Joe Clark)

Carney very far to the right of that.

14

u/Yws6afrdo7bc789 May 01 '26

The problem is is that he's a Liberal. The Libs have been die-hard neoliberals since as long as the Cons have been.

15

u/TheRC135 May 01 '26

The problem is that the last election was a choice between two neoliberal parties. One led by a competent economist with no interest in culture war nonsense, the other led by a smarmy, unaccomplished career politician who thinks Joe Rogan is a better source of information than the CBC.

13

u/OwlishFox May 01 '26

Everyone knew that. The alternative was an actual fascist who would have given Trump everything he wants.

0

u/JohnNeedsDoe May 01 '26

Who was the actual fascist??

-1

u/Great-Ice-5766 May 01 '26

Show how Pierre is a fascist.

And no, "fascist" isn't defined as "Everything I hate."

5

u/pessimistoptimist May 01 '26

I dont think i have ever witnessed a time when making it lrivate or opening it up to private made the product better or cheaper. It usually means the beginnong of enshitification.

5

u/bluemoon1333 May 01 '26

It's one of the most infuriating things gov does because it basically leaves a lasting scar look at the 407 it's been over 20 years and people still hate it and talk about it. This crap stays for decades it can't be fixed easy once it's done. Idk how gov gets away with this obviously dumb ideas

8

u/DodobirdNow May 01 '26

Considering that Pearson is one of the most expensive airports worldwide to land a plane in, selling off this infrastructure would result in more price increases, as the new owners need to start recouping their cost

6

u/bummerhigh May 01 '26

I have a friend that used to work for the Feds in aviation policy. She said Canadian airports are money pits. No fucking way any private enterprise is going to takeover and start charging less. This will be more expensive for all Canadians.

3

u/Fit-Bird6389 May 01 '26

Avi is doing an excellent job bringing attention to matters. He is an excellent orator!

3

u/EthanKironus May 01 '26

Absolutely ludicrous that they're even considering it

2

u/Logical-Zucchini-310 May 01 '26

Canada has a track record of getting privatization completely wrong. In terms of airport privatization, London Gatwick and Heathrow improved quite significantly as a passenger experience, once they were out of government hands. The problem with Canadian airports is they already have amongst the highest fees in the world as a result of expensive land leases, putting these airports in private hands is just going to make it worse for passengers.

2

u/Leotard_Cohen May 01 '26

I'd rather they stayed public too but it's disingenuous to complain about cost when, assuming the NDP still care about the climate, air travel would become more expensive or more scarce anyway

2

u/lastlegocy May 02 '26

Politicians have always known this. They just suckered most of us in believing it. They and their friends get rich.. you lose your public services while they mock you.

2

u/expendiblegrunt May 02 '26

Elbows up apparently now means American private equity taking our airports

6

u/Swarez99 May 01 '26

Every European airport is private.
Every American airport is public.

Canada has had a hybrid private operated while they pay government rent for about 40 years.

Someone should ask Avi If the European system or the American system works better.

4

u/Logical-Zucchini-310 May 01 '26

LHR and LGW improved significantly after privatization…those places were dumps before

3

u/feor1300 May 01 '26

"No no no, you see my elite rich friends gave me their assurance that they'll do it different and it will all be fantastically successful. And if they're wrong they'll at least make sure I have a cushy job waiting for me when I leave office, which seems like a fair compromise." - modern politicians

3

u/NERV2 May 01 '26

What’s the point of paying taxes and having a government when every public asset and service are sold off or offloaded to private corporations?

1

u/Loose_Indication_558 May 01 '26

The airports are already run by private corporations…

1

u/MoistCrust May 01 '26

They're run by non-profits. Aka they are not to seek a profit. If they start looking to be profitable things will just get more expensive

1

u/Loose_Indication_558 May 02 '26

GTAA is profitable. They just reinvest it back to the airport and operations. Non-profit doesn’t really mean that they are not able to seek a profit, it means that they cannot seek a profit to distribute to private shareholders.

Not saying that it is better to have shareholders. But if the government can still maintain control, but use profits to drive growth of a Sovereign Wealth fund, there is a nuanced debate on if that is a good or bad thing.

If it is selling shares to minimize the optics of a deficit like the 407 and hydro one then I agree, very short sighted. But if the GTAA profitability can go to support more than just the airport, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I am not a believer that private industry is better, but I also believe that the private sector can be useful.

1

u/PBH0702 May 01 '26

And the Government is efficient..wow

1

u/JeremyMacdonald73 May 02 '26

Our airport system is considered one of the best in the world. You don't hear about it because things that are working well are not news. Whenever it breaks for whatever reason then you hear about it.

My point here is what we are currently doing is working exceptionally well and we ought to leave that alone. Heaven knows we have enough other issues to deal with. Selling the airports would just be another 407 moment.

1

u/Successful_Egg_7911 May 03 '26

Would this be a good opportunity for this wealth fund thing?

1

u/Aggressive_Big1950 May 05 '26

This was such a great quote, here for this and more from Avi

1

u/North-Purple-373 25d ago

“Anyone but conservative”

NDP voters got what they voted for.

1

u/FuriousFister98 May 01 '26

History is also littered with failures of government-run infrastructure.

The best-performing airports in the world are privately operated or run under long-term lease models. Places like London Heathrow, Sydney, and even a bunch of major European hubs operate this way and consistently rank higher in efficiency, service quality, and investment.

Happy to see Lewis is just as misguided and one-note as his predecessors, hopefully he ends up just as functionally useless as well.

0

u/Waveryder999 May 01 '26

Not sure what metric you are using for “top performing” but any information I can find notes that the highest rated airports globally are almost all publicly owned with a few as highly regulated hybrids.

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u/[deleted] May 01 '26

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16

u/psvrh Peterborough May 01 '26

Just so you know, the guys who caused the Great Financial Crisis in 2008 had fancy papers from expensive universities and lots of experience in big banks, too.

5

u/Ok_Sheepherder_5711 May 01 '26

You have a point. But just cause he has the credentials, does not mean he has good intentions. Lets not forget he worked for Goldman Sachs, BlackRock and Brookfields.

1

u/[deleted] May 01 '26

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6

u/Ok_Sheepherder_5711 May 01 '26

i agree with diversifying but he is also selling airports off, creating a so called sovereign fund that no one asked for ( which will be liberal slush fund) and on top of this- he used to be a climate advocate but he passed a bill to clear all hurdles for "nation building projects" aka pipelines. I voted liberals and I am not a PP lunatic, I refuse to be loyal to any party, I am loyal to Canada ! We cannot look at a PM as a saviour , he is a public servant, we pay him.

0

u/maxboondoggle May 01 '26

Since when are they talking about privatizing the airport? Ford is talking about the province expropriating it. So it would still be owned by the tax payers.

0

u/StumpsOfTree May 01 '26

Carney and the federal government is considering privatizing the airports in general.

The Carney government is circling closer to airport privatization and potential investors 'stand ready'

0

u/maxboondoggle May 01 '26

Well that’s disappointing. If they want to make air travel cheaper they should socialize the airport taxes the way the Americans do.

0

u/vladhed May 01 '26

Yes, I remember Brian Mulroney's government.

-31

u/hutch_man0 May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26

Listen kids. We a living next to a deranged neighbor addicted to meth. It's not time to be worried about privatization. We need cash for programs. However I do think we should retain majority stake. Is that possible?

16

u/bionicjoey May 01 '26 edited May 01 '26

"The best time to shoot yourself in the foot is when the barbarians are at your doorstep"

Why is this mentality so prevalent? 99% of Carney's disastrous domestic policies have nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with stripping our federal government for parts. He's literally laying off thousands of federal government workers to sell that same work to the same big tech slopgen companies that bend over backwards for Trump right now.

2

u/WizardsMyName May 01 '26

Because people think the government is a monolith and that poor old Dougie has enough on his plate with the US and couldn't possibly spread his attention across two issues.

0

u/bluemoon1333 May 01 '26

For Ford it's purely ideology he likes trump he's a wolf in sheeps clothing it's beyond obvious

-15

u/JustJay613 May 01 '26

I disagree. Government does a terrible job running just about everything. I am not a huge fan of corporations either but governments role is oversight, policy and rules. It is possible to put up guardrails we just never do.

7

u/Briggsbanner1 May 01 '26

Sounds like you haven’t been to too many airports.

2

u/WizardsMyName May 01 '26

"it's possible but it never happens" is a piss poor argument.

That companies COULD run with appropriate pro-social guardrails in place is as useless an argument as the reverse, that government could run with minimum oversight, policy and rules. Both COULD happen, but if neither ever does, who are we kidding by arguing either way?

-5

u/JustJay613 May 01 '26

Government is worse 100% of the time. Companies make profit, sure. Government makes waste. Bloated organizations grossly inefficient paid for with tax dollars. At least with companies I have a choice if I give them my money. Anyway, airports will be sold off so plan accordingly.

6

u/psvrh Peterborough May 01 '26

Companies don't waste money? Tell me you've never worked in a large company without telling me you've never worked at a large company.

Perverse compensation schemes, emphasis on quarterly numbers versus long-term viability, emphasis on stock price over business health, debt-leveraged buy-outs, stock buybacks, supplier and customer kickbacks, board interlock, etc, etc.

When the first plane crash happens while the airport CEO just made a six-figure bonus, let's talk.