Canada's ATC system has been "privatized", in that their operations are managed by a private corporation. ATC services were not sub-contracted out to the lowest bidder. Rather when NavCanada was 'created', they lost the 'benefit' of being able to run deficits at the tax-payer expense, but conversely no longer had to manage it's staff under federal government labour rules. This permitted better and more appropriate wages and benefits, appropriate to the nature of the job. If anything, the safety and training standards were likely strengthened, improved and simplified to make it easier to monitor. (Personal opinion here) Governments are quite good at enacting legislation desired by the public, and usually quite good for monitoring products and services shrouded by such legislation. But they traditionally do quite poorly in providing those products and services. In Canada NavCanada is privatized and even the issuing of passports is privatized. In British Columbia, speeding tickets and drivers licenses are issued by a 'private' company. But they are all under government jurisdiction, and baring a good argument, do a reasonable job. Matthew http://www.redmac.ca - Getting Canadian's their Macintosh accessories http://www.justaddanoccasion.com - Great gift ideas, featuring smoked salmon On Jan 30, 2004, at 3:07 PM, damiross2@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > ATC can be contracted out, with no compromise to public safety, at a > net reduction in costs to the taxpaying public. It can still be under > governmental control, just not using government (i.e. civil service) > personnel. > > David R >> ATC is something that is inherently governmental, just from the sheer >> fact that >> it crosses state lines and deals with safety. Privatized ATC is an >> invite for >> disaster