The News Rundown

Canada in ‘early stages’ of talks on whether to privatize airports

Canada's government has announced that they are in the early stages of talks on whether to privatize airports or not, which has many people questioning whether this plan would improve services and costs at airports, or generate revenue for the federal government.
It's no secret that the Canadian government has amassed a large amount of debt, primarily under Prime Minister Mark Carney's predecessor Justin Trudeau, and that Carney has been looking for ways to make the economy more 'efficient' and to cut spending.
Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon did disclose that airport privatization is on the table as a possibility, and that the government is currently talking with airport authorities. He said: “We’re in the early stages of a process with airport authorities and other partners to determine the best way forward. The ultimate goal, of course, is to improve the passenger experience, to improve the efficiency of our air transport system. Indeed, [airports] are a public good and I don’t think that spirit or that philosophy will change.”
The government is working with NAV Canada and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority to finalize the plan, he said, although he did not say whether this included handing over airport land entirely to private players or plans to have public-private partnerships.
This is not the first time the Mark Carney government has hinted at privatizing Canada’s airports. In the federal budget presented in November 2025, the federal government said it will “consider options for the privatization of airports.”
Airports are among the highest-value federally owned assets that could be considered for sale as much of the infrastructure owned by governments across Canada resides in either provincial or municipal hands.
As of 2020, nearly 20 per cent of the airports in the world had been privatized. A 2022 study in the U.S.-based non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research compared the performance of 2,444 airports around the world in 217 countries.
The report found that the number of passengers per flight — a key metric when assessing airport efficiency — increased by 20 per cent when private equity funds buy government-owned airports and overall passenger traffic rises by 84 per cent. Airports also get bigger with private equity funds as owners, the report found, with private owners adding new terminals and gates. The study also found fewer flight cancellations.
However, flying may get more expensive as the fees that airports charge to airlines rises after an airport is privatized, the report found. The rise in the number of privately-owned airports was also associated with a push for deregulation and pushback against government controls, such as caps or limits on fees.
In the early 1990s, Canada chose to retain public ownership of airports but transferred operations of some of the busiest airports in the country to 21 privately owned airport authorities.
The federal government collects up to 12 per cent of airport gross revenues in the form of rent, the Canadian Airports Council says. Between 1992 and 2019, airports have paid more than $6.5 billion in “rent” to the federal government, the council says.
What this means is that even though the operations are run by non-profits, the government still takes revenue from the airports, which has led to a huge amount of disparity in the costs for people taking flights to or from Canadian airports, as opposed to American airports which are almost entirely publicly owned and operated. Major hubs like LAX, Atlanta, Chicago O’Hare, and JFK are owned by municipal or port authorities. America has not gone the privatization route.
Across the world, results from privatization elsewhere in the world are mixed, at best. Some European airports (London Heathrow Airport, Charles de Gaulle Airport, Lisbon Airport) perform well under private or semi-private ownership, but they also operate in dense, competitive transportation corridors that are dissimilar to Canada, especially as they are some of Europe's densest transit hubs and biggest and most travelled airports.
Australia’s experience has been more controversial. On the positive side, major airports in Sydney and Melbourne did see significant capital investment and modernization after privatization. But, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has repeatedly flagged concerns about monopoly pricing. Landing fees and passenger charges have climbed significantly and there has been deep frustration from both airlines and passengers about rising costs.
Commentators like former Stephen Harper era cabinet minister James Moore believes that airport privatization won’t happen – and it shouldn’t happen. At least, it won’t happen in the pure sense of divesting our airports fully to private interests; and he says there are good reasons why they shouldn’t be.
Moore says: "While certainly not perfect, Canada’s airports are run by not-for-profit airport authorities that already operate at arm’s length from government. They reinvest revenues into infrastructure rather than distributing profits to shareholders. They are generally governed very well, publicly accountable, transparent in their operations, and firmly regulated in the public interest as the essential public infrastructure that they are. Airports are investing in modernization, maintaining regional connectivity, and operating with some commercial discipline."
Meanwhile, Michel Leduc, senior managing director at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, said core national infrastructure that provides an international platform — such as a hub airport in a G7 country — is a “sweet spot” for institutional investors like the nearly $732-billion CPP fund.
“We look forward to seeing the details, valuations (and) growth opportunities,” he said, adding that flexible partnerships, predictable regulatory terms and professional fiduciary boards are among the characteristics the pensions look for in such assets. “This is trending in the right direction…. We stand ready.”
Carney has also now formally floated the idea of asset recycling, an idea popular with Canada’s largest globe-trotting pension funds known as the Maple 8, in which government-owned assets are leased or sold to private sector investors and the proceeds are used by governments to invest in priority infrastructure.
Other experts say that privatization can be beneficial not just for the airports and the government, but also air travellers.
Research led by corporate finance expert Hyeik Kim of the University of Alberta analyzed over 2,400 airports globally. Her study found that private equity ownership specifically leads to better performance, including fewer flight cancellations, more routes, and improved customer service.
To avoid the pitfalls seen in Australia that Moore pointed out, where privatization led to monopolistic pricing and high fees (something that's no stranger to Canadians), experts and policymakers suggest that Canada must move beyond simple asset sales and implement rigorous regulatory frameworks.
One of those is to implement stronger price and service regulation, in opposition to Australia's 'hands off' approach. But this would just lead to more government oversight and regulation, and would likely not result in the cost savings the Carney government is hoping for.
In the end, whether you're for privatization of Canada's airports or not, it's clear that air travel within Canada has long been rife with customer dissatisfaction, questionable service quality, high ticket prices, and a lack of consumer choice. Ineffectual federal government policy is at the heart of the issue. The amount of money taken by the government from airport authorities directly causes much of the astronomical cost of air travel in Canada, and really the issue is going to come down to money, and whether or not consumers will get value for their money under a new system.
Currently mainstream media is running articles either strongly for or against privatization without exploring all of the options on the table. At the heart of it, the government has a big decision to make and needs to make the right balance. If not, we will see further uncompetitiveness and higher gouging from our airline duopoly of Air Canada and WestJet, and people will remain dissatisfied.
Supplementals:

Alberta is getting a new pipeline except this one goes south of the border. Late this past week US President Donald Trump signed a presidential permit for the Bridger Pipeline’s proposed project to carry crude to Wyoming.
The project is joint proposal between Canadian company Southpaw and US based Bridger Pipeline.
The pipeline would add around 550,000 barrels per day capacity to Canada’s export capacity.
On the whole this would bring the total export capacity to about 1 million barrels. This represents a 12% increase in Canada exports to the US.
The route would use existing Keystone XL pipe in Canada and run through Montana to Wyoming. Previously Keystone XL ran through Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska down to Kansas.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith approved of the news saying, “After years of advocacy from our government, and following the signing of the Canada-Alberta Energy Agreement last year, the federal government has lifted their oil and gas production cap. This means Alberta producers will be able to produce more of the oil that the world needs. It’s incredible to see that work already paying off with announcements like this.”
Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said, “somehow, we’re going to have to attract a lot of capital, be an attractive place for that upstream production.”
She said this because based on her work in the energy industry she suspects it will cost $100b to fill the pipeline and another $100b to build a pipeline to BC.
This is important even if the infrastructure exists, the environment has to be favourable to actually extract the resources in Canada.
The striking down of the emissions cap came as part of the energy memorandum of understanding between Alberta and the federal government. Part of that included the removal of the production cap on oil and gas.
That combined with a reckoning in terms of market realities has made the idea of such a project very appealing.
North America is not Europe but the increased price of oil as a result of the war on Iran has caused most jurisdictions to look for other sources of oil.
Media coverage of this story has been light since a brand new export project with the United States is probably what most Canadians do not want to hear about.
The coverage though should be far and wide. The idea of a pipeline increasing Canada’s export capacity without relying on the quagmire that Canadian pipeline politics brings warrants discussion.
In particular, the focus that this project was initiated by a Presidential permit. A Presidential permit that can be rescinded by the next administration if they have the appropriate political viewpoints.
Should a democrat win the presidency in 2028 questions will arise. With that Canada needs to consider the following two options.
First, once it becomes clear who the 2028 democratic nominees may be, Canada must cultivate a positive energy relationship with those people. Convince the modern democrats that they need Canadian energy.
Second, do what can be done from our side of the border to ensure shovels are in the ground and the project is sufficiently along in its build progression that it cannot be cancelled.
If our governments don’t do this, it will show that they are not serious about energy exports.
The Alberta government and Premier Danielle Smith has been doing this, building alliances south of the border.
In her statement she highlighted the “years of advocacy” from the UCP. She also called the US “our most important trading partner.”
Contrast this to the federal government and a statement from Natural Resources Minister Tim Hodgson, "We are aware of the issuance of permits to Bridger Pipeline. The Government of Canada remains focused on strengthening Canada’s position as an energy superpower, supporting North American and global energy security, and advancing the diversification of our trade partnerships.”
The difference is clear and the difference in priorities between both countries is clear. The US administration just decided they wanted this new pipeline. The permit was issued. Done.
If Canada wants to be an energy super power there is no better opportunity than now and this pipeline is a key part of it but we must play our cards right.
That is what the media is not telling us this week.
Supplementals:

The Whitecaps are a top team in MLS. Why is Vancouver struggling to keep them?

One can hardly walk around Vancouver without being reminded of the city's close ties to its soccer team, the Vancouver Whitecaps, with banners hanging from street lamps, advertisements on the sides of buildings, and of course the visage of the iconic BC Place stadium, one of the North American venues for the FIFA World Cup later this summer.
The Whitecaps have a passionate fan base, well-attended matches and stellar on-field performances — yet their future in the city is in jeopardy. As an investor group files a formal bid to Major League Soccer to buy and relocate the club to Las Vegas, Whitecaps management maintain that there is "no viable offer" from a buyer that would keep the team in Vancouver.
MLS spokesperson Dan Courtemanche said in a statement Thursday: “Major League Soccer remains focused on working with the Whitecaps and local stakeholders to determine whether a sustainable long-term path for the club can be achieved."
Commissioner Don Garber met with Premier David Eby, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, British Columbia Deputy Minister of Tourism Silas Brownsey, and PavCo President and CEO Rehana Din. PavCo is the operator of BC Place, where the Whitecaps play. The meeting took place during the FIFA congress, where the World Cup is partly held within Vancouver during the summer.
Courtemanche said: “Those conversations were constructive, and we appreciate the time and engagement from local leadership. MLS and club representatives will continue discussions in the days ahead, and league leadership plans to return to Vancouver in the coming weeks for additional meetings.”
The Whitecaps are sitting at second place in Major League Soccer's western conference standings, have a low salary cap and enjoy one of the best attendance records in the league.
But the team's owners have been looking to sell since 2024, a decision the owners frame as necessary because of economic challenges surrounding stadium revenue and access.
British Columbia's Jobs Minister Ravi Kahlon framed it as a cash grab in comments to reporters on Thursday: "We understand that the value has gone from $35 million to close to $500 million, and they see an opportunity to cash in on that. But we also believe that the MLS owes it to the fans in Vancouver to do whatever they can to keep the team here."
Kahlon referred to Vancouver's current ownership group, which includes Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and former NBA star Steve Nash. Kahlon, a Whitecaps season ticket holder, said the government wants the club to remain in Vancouver because the team is an important part of the community.
Still, the team has said that despite its success on the field, it's at the bottom of the league in revenue. Garber said the club's lease at BC Place Stadium wasn't sustainable because of restricted revenue from food and beverage sales and less flexibility around scheduling.
The team signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Vancouver in December over exploring the possibility of a stadium, and it agreed to a one-year deal with PavCo, the provincial Crown corporation that owns BC Place, in February.
Whitecaps CEO Axel Schuster said at the time that the lease would not solve the team's long-term financial viability issues.
Kamran Eshghi, an associate professor in the school of sports administration at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont., said the owners likely feel the team can get a better deal in another city that would let the buyers keep stadium profits from things like food and drink sales.
He said that unless the team gets a good deal from the city or the province that allows them more control over stadium operations, the writing may be on the wall for the Vancouver Whitecaps.
Kahlon said the Whitecaps haven't come forward with a proposal for taking over the lease at BC Place, but added a meeting between Garber and Premier David Eby on Wednesday resulted in an agreement to meet again to find a way for the team to stay in Vancouver.
The bid seeking to buy the Whitecaps proposes building a privately financed soccer stadium in Las Vegas, with no public funding. For Whitecaps fans, the move would be a devastating blow.
Vancouver's mayor says the group from Las Vegas isn't the only one looking to buy and relocate the Whitecaps.
Ken Sim said: "Look, a lot of groups have reached out over the last 48 hours. I don’t want to give anyone false hope, because we do have a hill to climb. At the city, we've done everything we can to make sure that we set up a future ownership group with a path toward success. Now it's up to the province to step up.”
Still, Eby ruled out handing over provincial ownership of BC Place Stadium to the Whitecaps, noting the team has shown no interest in taking it over and it is not a moneymaker for the province. Time is running out. The league will kick off a shortened 14-week season in February 2027, then is pivoting to a summer-to-spring format later that year. Schedules need to be drawn up. The one-year lease the team has signed will have expired. Same with the agreement to look at building a stadium on the site of the former Hastings Racetrack.
Eby says the province has been an open book, and now it’s the team’s turn. Though by admitting the stadium doesn’t generate big profits, it perhaps opens the door for the MLS club.
“We have renegotiated a contract that they had for more than a decade. They’ve seen a $2 million reduction in their costs. We’ve seen additional million dollars in revenue for them, so $3 million in total, and we’re still at the table wanting to work with them, because it has to be reasonable.”
Regardless, if BC wants to see one of it's most successful sports stories stay in Vancouver, it's going to take a lot of work to do so, and we'll have to see if David Eby will be willing to go the distance to do so. Politically, it may not be feasible for him to be seen as an opponent to sports success, especially after being negative towards any future BC Olympic bid.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

Carney to announce sovereign wealth fund

In the lead up to the fiscal update this week the federal government announced that Canada would be creating a sovereign wealth fund, bootstrapped by $25b in investment.
We’ll get into why that’s raising eyebrows but first, what is a sovereign wealth fund?
A sovereign wealth fund is simply a state owned investment fund. It invests often in things like stocks, bonds, real estate, precious metals, or in more risky cases private equity funds or hedge funds.
Investment occurs globally and the goal is to make a slow but general profit even when the global economy slows down.
The largest sovereign wealth funds exist in Norway, China, and the UAE.
The funds primarily in the Middle East and Norway’s are primarily built around oil and gas. We’ll ask if this is the goal for Canada in a little while.
Overall a sovereign wealth fund sounds like a good idea for Canada. Mark Carney himself described the fund as a national savings and investment account designed to grow wealth for future generations.
The government wants the fund to be linked to support for the upcoming nation building projects including ports and natural resources projects.
The fund in Canada will have a group of professional managers and operate at an arms length from the government as an independent Crown Corporation.
It’s at this point we get to the first difference between this fund and other funds. Most sovereign wealth funds invest internationally. This one will invest in Canada primarily.
Another huge difference between this fund and others is that the first endowment of $25b will come from government financed debt.
The $25b will be seeded over 3 years and the government may allocate more resources to it.
Typically sovereign wealth funds receive money from budgetary surpluses which Canada does not have.
Sovereign wealth funds in Norway and Singapore have a purely financial Dante and operate as a commercial investor respectively. It doesn’t look like the Canada fund will do that.
Instead based on what has been relayed it looks as though the fund in Canada will act to combine investment activity with domestic economic goals.
In Saudi Arabia theirs was used to build mega projects such as the NEOM smart city, the tourism industry, and reduce reliance on oil revenues.
In the UAE the wealth fund was used to incubate industries like aerospace, semiconductors, and renewable energy.
In both cases the goal was financial return and domestic building capacity.
We’ve highlighted that sovereign wealth funds typically receive their investment from surpluses or resource revenues.
In a press conference following the announcement Carney said, “Where there is at the heart of all these projects, including resources, provincial jurisdiction; where the federal government is catalyzing, helping to make the project happen through a tax or other incentive - regulatory support - and at the core there is a commercial business making a profit, it is fair, right, just, smart for Canadians to have a share directly in those profits.”
Carney was asked how he could persuade provinces that it wasn’t a natural resources grab. He then honed in on the provincial jurisdiction, federal government enabling projects to happen, he said it was fair and just for Canadians to have a share of those profits.
Heather Exner-Pirot, senior fellow and director of energy, natural resources and environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute said, “‘Regulatory support’ does not seem like a fair condition by which to extract ‘profits’ above and beyond normal corporate tax rates. If this is about a windfall tax on oil and gas and mining in exchange for regulatory efficiency, that will be a problem!”
This is the core of Canada’s sovereign wealth fund discussion that is being completely missed by the media.
This is the exact same idea that was Trudeau Sr’s NEP or national energy program that sought to take a portion of profits for the federal government.
No one in the media has connected the dots as of yet that resource companies should they receive federal support or regulatory support would need to invest in this fund a portion of their profits.
The government has been mum on exactly what the conditions will be. We’ve been told to wait and see for full details of the fund when it gets unveiled.
Many will see the fund and say that if these companies operate in Canada they should invest in the country. But they already do by providing prosperity in terms of the taxes and regulatory fees paid. The resource royalties collected in Alberta and other oil producing provinces enrich all of Canada.
This is an extra grab of corporate profits. Why?
Look to the Alberta Heritage Fund. The fund was established in the 1970s by Peter Lougheed and it was first up in the 1980s that Premier Don Getty thought the rainy day had arrived and his government withdrew more than $850m from the fund.
This continued at various points in Alberta’s history.
The fund in Alberta has always underperformed relative to other oil based funds. It was politics of the day that caused it to underperform.
University of Calgary Economist Jack Mintz chaired a government study in 2008 that said that if the Alberta government adopted management strategies similar to Norway the fund would grow to $100b by 2030.
Alaska also has a similar fund founded in 1976 that is valued at $89b USD.
The Alaska fund has a built-in accountability mechanism of a $1,600 cash dividend per resident. This dividend gets smaller when the fund performs poorly, an outcome managers obviously want to avoid.
The big question for energy companies is if they will need to pay profits directly into the fund because the federal government will be running deficits (still) as far as the eye can see.
If the situation were different the fund would look like Norway or Alaska but those who have connected the dots are left wondering if this is just another energy profit grab by the federal government.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“We’re in the early stages of a process with airport authorities and other partners to determine the best way forward. The ultimate goal, of course, is to improve the passenger experience, to improve the efficiency of our air transport system. Indeed, [airports] are a public good and I don’t think that spirit or that philosophy will change.” - Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon on the possibility of privatizing Canada’s airports

Word of the Week

wealth - the abundance of valuable financial assets, property, or resources that have market or exchangeable value, often measured as an individual's or entity's net worth.

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Show Data

Episode Title: A Wealth of Debt
Teaser: Carney looks at privatizing Canada’s airports, Trump approves a new pipeline from Alberta to Wyoming, and Vancouver’s Whitecaps may be forced to relocate. Also, Canada’s new sovereign wealth fund is not what the government makes it sound like.
Production Code: WC-466-2026-05-02
Recorded Date: May 2, 2026
Release Date: May 3, 2026
Duration: 1:10:12
Edit Notes: Cough in BC, wotw pause

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX