A drop in NavCanada's level of service may have occurred but I don't consume their services directly, so I couldn't be sure. But no catastrophic drop of their services has occurred, or so it seems. If NavCanada didn't become unshackled from the Fed. Government's constraining labour rules, who knows what might have been the level of service we would be suffering now. Simple things such the inability to incent labour practices such as mentoring were reportedly quite restrictive. As for Transport Canada's handling of airport, it's been a mess. The press has loved this topic, and YVR, being one of the first 'privatizations' (quotation marks truly required) has complained loudly, and rightfully. NavCanada, ICBC and the other 'private' organizations which provide previously government provided services don't have to pay exorbitant land leasing fees as YVR does. Transport Canada's complete poker face, and inability to be clear as to their direction has made the problem even worse. Matthew (I didn't necessarily praise privatization, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't like a municipal government outsourcing their garbage collection.) 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 5:13 PM, Ian Caldwell wrote: > Before you start praising the " privatization " of NAV Canada you > should > read yesterday's National Post, where Terence Corcoran wrote a long > article > about it and airport privatization. The article was based upon an > interview > that Corcoran had with Doug Young, the government minister who was > responsible for privatizing it and the airports. Young said that the > privatization was nothing but a sham by the government to off load a > service, maintain its monopoly status and yet still reap the same > amount of > money for the government. As a monopoly it can charge whatever it wants > regardless of the state of the aviation industry. Young also claims > that > quality has dropped as there is no competition to NAV Canada. It has no > shareholders and is quite literally responsible to no one, not even the > captive mass of suckers who have no choice but to pay what they want. > > The other component was airport privatization where the federal > government > receives about $200 million a year in airport rent, yet they were > supposed > to have sold the airports. Another off-loading of services but the > government stills wants to maintain the same revenue stream. This is > compounded by local governments who are now turning airports into Taj > Mahals with ever increasing " airport improvement fees" again > regardless of > the state of the industry. > > > > At 04:29 PM 1/30/2004 -0800, you wrote: >> 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