Enshitification of airports incoming.
Are you suggesting Air Canada, West Jet, etc, weren’t shitty already?
Those are airlines. Expect that type of service to begin as soon as you enter airport property instead of just when you’re interacting with the airline itself.
Airports are already run by independent organizations called airport authorities, who build up everything around the airport and the airport itself. I don’t think these authorities are going away, just adding members to their boards through investors. The airport authorities in Canada are all NGOs. In these cases, the airlines will be dealing with the authorities’ board members, and all will want to keep people flying so I don’t see a huge downgrade incoming.
Yes but investors are going to want profit so…
This same argument was made about sports complexes and the Internet as a whole. Enshittification is a real thing, and this is exactly the sort of move that drives it.
Sure they’ll still provide service, but you’ll be data mined, forced to watch and respond to ads, services will be gutted, security will be even more theatre than it already is — because there’s no alternative. This is a monopoly stake.
HOWEVER, for the select few, there will be private airport services for those who can pay. These services will avoid this race to the bottom until the larger service collapses under borrowing against future growth for current profits.
Why am I so sure of all this?
Because that’s how this playbook has ALWAYS played out. Every. Single. Time. And somewhere in there, regulatory capture rears its head as well.
Maybe you’re right, but then people just won’t go, or they’ll go to alternative airports which have now been invested in thanks to the influx of capital from the big four airports.
To think you’re not already all of those things is naive, I’m sorry to say. There’s already tons of ads around airports. You’re already surveiled. Your info is collected and sold to companies. And, there is already a nicer tier for those willing to pay.
What this sounds like to me is more of the same, maybe to a higher degree, but we’ll have infrastructure in the end.
So which airports well they go to? You know not every airport has international flights and this well not change that.
How do people go to alternative airports?
For example, the closest airport to YVR is Abbotsford. Except it doesn’t service the same routes. So you end up having to drive to Seattle, Calgary or Edmonton to fly to… Seattle, Calgary or Edmonton?
The other airports listed have similar issues; for the services they provide, they are a regional monopoly.
Are you suggesting they can’t get worse?
Canadian airports suck already
Never been to La Guardia I see.
That famous airport in New York City, Ontario?
All the Canadian airports I’ve been to have been top notch. That includes YYZ, YYC, YHM, and YWG. In a month I’ll in YVR for another data point. They’ve all been wonderful, professional, clean, and fast. Way faster than the ones I’ve been in USA and Mexico.
I agree they’re clean, but they pale in comparison in terms of service, entertainment, professionalism, and competence against airports I’ve been to in Asia like Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China.
The prime minister said the private money will be sought through “long-term concessions” to operate these airports, which would include Toronto Pearson International Airport, Vancouver International Airport, Trudeau International Airport in Montreal and Calgary International Airport.
“The government of Canada will retain ownership of the underlying land and assets, but we will unlock their true value by bringing in new capital and expertise to their operations and growth,” Carney said during an address at the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on Tuesday morning.
“We will reinvest the tens of billions of dollars of capital we raise into the infrastructure that Canada needs for the next generation.”
I always felt Toronto Pearson could use some more expertise. /s
So the HWY 407 treatment. Expect lower wages for airport workers and higher prices for everyone.
What I don’t get is the investors are going to want a return on their investment, the pro people seem to be forgetting that so they but a billion into Canada and take out 2 billion. How is that a good thing long term.
I think the good faith version of the scheme is that not every billion invested produces the same amount of goods and services as every other billion. E.g. a billion invested in a luxury yacht-building shipyard compared to a billion invested in high-speed rail. The yach shipyard produce few goods/services for very small group of people. The high-speed rail produces goods/services for a lot of people and businesses. If you take the materialist perspective that the wealth a nation has, constitutes of all the goods/services we produce, then if we take billion from airports, put it in developing or expanding some other activity that produces more goods/services for us, we get more g/s. And then the good faith bet would be that the value/quantity of those would be higher than the value lost from the higher cost from the profit the new airport operator will get (and possibly exfiltrate abroad). Are the new investments gonna do that? I don’t know. I am skeptical for a set of reasons. Either way we’re getting less airport for our money in the (not too) long term as you suggested.
As has been said before, “Canada doesn’t have a PM, it has a CEO.”
Fuck.
And, as per the response every time, at least we didn’t have a clown.
We need to get this man a minority and get things fixed.
Absolutely.
The fact that Poilievre would be worse doesn’t excuse Carney’s shitty activity for a second. A Liberal minority government was the best situation possible, and the opposition had to ruin it all.
Remember that we gave Carney a minority government. He wheeled and dealed (read: bribed) his way to a majority. But that minority was probably not going to temper the Carney government the way it did the Trudeau government because Carney was perfectly happy to go to the Cons to get bills passed.
We need to stop the lesser evil shit, that’s how the Americans ended up with Trump.
We need electoral reform so we get a government that more closely represents the people.
Do you always stand next to the dumbest kid in class so you look better? Canada is getting fucked over from the inside as much as it is from the outside. We need politicians who are not invertibrate bottom feeders.
Albertan separatists just need to be patient. If this goes through, it’ll make Canada much more like the USA.
Anyone who thinks it’d be only these four airports is fooling themselves.
Exactly
Typical banker behavior.
Surely the problem with the last 40 years of economic decisionmaking is that we didn’t privatize enough. Why not healthcare, next? Maybe instead of a national military we can simply hire mercenaries like Saudi Arabia. Because the private market always does things better and more efficiently.
I’m tired, so, so tired…
Me too, eh bud.
For those who sign petitions: https://www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-7453
Selling airports to build rail so no one uses airports? Sounds like a good rug pull. Too bad no one would buy it without knowing that won’t happen.
There will always be FFFF*s in airports. When YYZ was expanded, everyone though it was too big.
*Fat Fucks in Flip-Flops.
Madness.
Selling off airports to fund passenger rails would be a smart move.
Any other reason for doing it is noeliberal nonsense imo
Half way through to crazy town
Unpopular opinion, but “meh…whatever”.
As far as privatisation is concerned, there are four untouchable and sacrosanct necessities: healthcare, infrastructure, policing, and utilities. None of those, in a broader sense, should ever be managed by private corporations for a profit motive.
But if you want to add some money to our coffers by farming out the day to day operations of things like airports and other less critical things, I have no issue.
I couldn’t care less whether my government was directly managing how many fucking Timmie’s airport “x” can support, or whether a private company is given the contract to handle janitorial services in government buildings (for example), or whether the government wants to contract out it’s parking enforcement lackies. Who… cares.
Toronto Pearson International Airport,
Vancouver International Airport,
Trudeau International Airport (Montreal),
Calgary International Airport.I thought you guys loved it when he does shit like this.
