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The federal government plans to hand control of Canada’s major airports to profit-seeking investors. Passengers and workers will end up paying for it.
Airports are critical public infrastructure. They exist to serve passengers and communities, facilitating business and tourism. They provide good jobs in those communities. Private investors have a different job: extracting profits. Those profits will have to come from somewhere. Likely higher fees, outsourcing or contract flipping jobs, staff cuts, or all three.
Airports are a monopoly. If you live in, travel through or move cargo through Montreal, Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver, there is no alternative. That’s why private investors, including Canadian pension funds, will be lining up to cut lucrative deals to operate airports in exchange for steady revenue streams.
Take Heathrow Airport, with its track record of exorbitant fee hikes and massively inflated maintenance charges, many levied while Canada’s Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec held a sizeable stake in the facility.
To generate higher profits, private airports will hike airport improvement and parking fees. They’ll also follow the lead of privatized airports that have introduced new fees to do everyday things like dropping off passengers or using a baggage cart. Canadians already pay too much to fly, and privatization will supersize this problem.
Australian airports were privatized under a similar model to the government’s pitch. Price caps didn’t last long. Once fees were deregulated, Perth Airport increased the revenue it collected from airlines per passenger by more than 60% over a decade.
We expect to hear what our government has learned from the international experience, and we expect strong regulation. But greed has no guardrails. Corporations and investors know exactly how to lobby to weaken and water down any protections.
We are especially concerned about the thousands of workers and their collective agreements, whether they are employed directly by airport authorities or through contractors. Today, those workers are extremely worried about their futures.
Privatization will also bring new labour and safety worries. Aircraft de-icing, runway maintenance, cleaning and other basic services will be scrutinized under the cost-cutting microscope in a sector where workers already face precarious work and constant pressure on their wages and working conditions.
As one example of the drive to maximize profits, Australia’s Sydney Airport cut its workforce by 40% as soon as a short-term ‘protection’ against job cuts lapsed.
Analysis from the Canadian Labour Congress shows Canada's current not-for-profit airport authorities already attract private capital and reinvest their surpluses in airport infrastructure. They also return approximately $525 million every year to the federal government through airport rents.
Some are likely hoping that involving Canadian pension funds will give this privatization and asset recycling scheme an aura of respectability and trust. When the quest to generate profits from workers’ deferred wages harms workers and community members, we need to stand up to that.
A better experience in airports is possible, but not like this.
Surveying this scheme from 30,000 feet, there’s a final big-picture issue. Surrendering direct control of strategic transportation infrastructure simply does not square with the federal government’s stated goal of building a stronger, more resilient, sovereign Canadian economy.
This isn’t the first attempt to privatize airports. Various schemes have been floated in the past. All have failed to take off, let alone win over the public.
It’s time to ground this flawed idea.
Lana Payne is Unifor’s National President representing more than 320,000 members across Canada.
Mark Hancock is CUPE’s National President representing more than 800,000 members across Canada.
