Private investors profit. Travellers pay. Doug Ford stays silent.
There's talk in Ottawa of opening Canada's airports to private investors, everything from Pearson on down. Ottawa calls it "asset recycling." You should call it what it is: a fire sale on infrastructure the public already owns and already paid for.Ontarians know exactly how this movie ends, because we've lived it. In 1999, Ontario handed the 407 to private investors on a 99-year lease. Ever since, a private company has made billions off the backs of commuters and taxpayers, and we'll keep paying for decades. Private investors don't take over public infrastructure out of generosity. They do it to maximize profit for their shareholders, and that profit comes from you: higher fees on every ticket, thousands of good jobs on the chopping block, and service cut wherever it doesn't pay.Doug Ford should be Ontario's loudest voice against a sell-off. Instead, silence, and his record tells you why. This is the Premier who handed Ontario Place to a luxury spa company, locked every teacher's classroom supply card into American-owned Staples, and pushed a Billy Bishop expansion to benefit a company with close ties to a Wall Street bank. Selling off what belongs to the public isn't a mistake he might make. It's his playbook.Marit Stiles and the Ontario NDP are calling on the Premier to publicly oppose any privatization of our airports and tell Ottawa clearly: Ontario expects our airports to stay in public hands, working for travellers and workers, not investors.
Authorized by the CFO of the Ontario NDP.