Sell Canada's Airports?

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Okay, I gotta ask, would you sell, if you were the government of Canada, would you sell all of Canada's major airports?

[00:00:07]Would you sell all the airports? Because that's what they're talking about. Yeah.

[00:00:12]The federal government's talking about, maybe we should, you know, sell the airports. We got a lot of good reasons why we think it's a good idea. Okay.

[00:00:20]Well, no, it's not a good [ __ ] idea, but it is it it does really need to be talked about. Okay. So why would a government government sell these airports? Well, first of all, it is what we refer to as financial engineering. In other words, over here we have an asset. We can sell the asset, bring in a whole bunch of cash, billions and billions of cash for our government to piss away in a different form and nobody will know the difference. It's not like something went away. Nothing goes away. Nothing disappears. The airports are still there. They won't keep running. Okay. So, the financial engineering is all of a sudden you show Oh, look. We have uh catalyzed. [ __ ] me.

[00:01:07]They love catalyzed in the federal government. If I hear one more [ __ ] catalyzed, I'll Yeah. Oh, we have catalyze the value. Oh, [ __ ] off. You You've sold something. That's all you did. So, but they love Prime Minister loves financial engineering. It's his It was his trade working uh particularly when he worked at Brookfield. Bfield is just all about financial engineering.

[00:01:29]That's the nature of their company.

[00:01:30]Okay, look, it raises a couple of really good points. Okay, like first point, is it a benefit? Would it be a benefit to Canadians? Well, the idea of all of a sudden receiving uh $25 billion or whatever the number is, whatever they sell it for, uh getting that money in and how will it help us and and we run huge huge deficits. So would it really mean much? Who knows? But the point of what the government is saying is not just to bring in money. But that free enterprise will run the airports much better. We will be much happier with the airport. It'll run more smoothly. It'll be better. Everything will be better at the airport. They'll make improvements.

[00:02:14]And yeah, it'll all be better. If you if you sell the airports, these companies will do a much much better job of running them. And Canadians will be happy about that. Okay. All right. So this is important because two things can be true at once.

[00:02:31]The government is correct. The operations of the airport are [ __ ] Is these are some of the shittiest airports on earth. Okay, I'm not even kidding.

[00:02:42]Like I I use the airports, okay?

[00:02:46]particularly in Canada, but I've used and but I've been everywhere and I've used airports all over the world and Canada's a pretty shitty. Yeah, they're pretty shitty for very very busy airport, particularly Pearson. Pearson is one of the busiest airports in the world. Okay. And it's really shitty. I use it often. Um and people don't like there's literally nobody alive that you would ask about Pearson Airport who does quite a bit of traveling and say, "Is Pearson a good airport?" They would all say, "No, it's shit." Okay? because it's dirty. It's the people are all rude. Uh, oh, that's the that's the airline, Ron.

[00:03:22]That's not the Would your bags show up much much faster in uh El Salvador, you get your bag p you get your bag delivered to you in El Salvador enormously faster than Pearson. And we've spent billions and billions on Pearson. Then that tells you something like like literally everywhere gives you your bags faster than Pearson does.

[00:03:50]That's just the truth. And it's and they're very poorly. Anyway, everyone will agree Pearson's [ __ ] Like literally everyone. Even some of the people who work there will say, "Yeah, it's pretty shitty." Um, so let's think this. So yes, the idea to keep in your head is the airport's [ __ ] And the idea is, oh, the other idea is, well, if we sell it, the people who buy it will do better with it. Now, what guarantee do we have on that? Like, I want to I want to take you back to Highway 407. So, Highway 407 is a highway in Ontario that was built through the provincial government as a toll road. Okay? So, you pay when you go on the uh 407. Okay? and it's it's it's always less busy than than the main highway 401, which is one of the busiest highways on planet Earth. Okay, so it's a toll road. So the government sold the toll road years ago, like long time ago, and they said, "Oh, we're selling the toll road because we're going to make billions, bring billions in for the taxpayer."

[00:04:52]Okay? And it was a total [ __ ] Like a complete [ __ ] I'll tell you one thing, they do operate 407 well. like 407. They take good care of it. They um they expand it. Why not? They're making money, right? So, yes, it is a well operated highway, but it's highly underused because it's toll, so hard because it's expensive as [ __ ] It is apparently I'm told I've read that it is one of the most expensive toll roads in North America that has com that it brings in more money than other toll roads because it's got the very highest toll. Okay.

[00:05:29]which [ __ ] people and that's why it's a highway that was built and is underutilized. Okay, if there was no tolls on 407, then the 401 would be much much easier to navigate every day. Okay, so what does that tell you about the airports? Okay, it tells you that let's imagine we sold all the airports, the major airports for 25 billion, $30 billion, maybe 50, who knows? Big money.

[00:05:53]We sell it for 50 and then we find out who are we selling them to? Well, we probably sell it to sovereign wealth fund. We're selling to Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund. Sell it to uh um the Norway, Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. We're selling it to people big big investors. Huge. Maybe even Brookfield is involved. I'm not saying. I don't know for sure, but it's sold. Whatever the hell it's sold for, within 10 years, they'll sell it for at least a 50% profit. That's just reality.

[00:06:23]And I guarantee you this, if it's ever sold, the airport costs that we will end up paying as ticket ticket buyers will keep going up. It'll just keep going up. It'll go up just as consistently and as abusively as it's gone up through the government. So now this brings up the final consideration.

[00:06:45]The final consideration if the government says there's two reasons make money for Canadian taxpayers. Okay.

[00:06:53]Well, don't people who travel on the airlines don't people who travel from the airports taxpayers too? And they will in inevitably end up paying higher ticket prices as the private company wants to gouge them. And the other argument the government has is it be much better service. Okay.

[00:07:11]Why the [ __ ] can't the government deliver better airport service? Like, why the [ __ ] This is what drives me crazy about every government announcement. Oh, we think private enterprise could do a better job. Well, obviously, yes. Okay. But why are you so bad? Like, this isn't complicated. Like, this isn't you're stuck with a dying model. You're not stuck with a dying model like Canada Post that everybody stopped using the mail. You're in an existent expansion model. There's more people traveling by air every [ __ ] year. So co few other you know when the uh there's some there's some interruptions but historically in North America with the these limited number of airports we have they get busier and busier and busier every year. It's a booming industry it's a growth industry.

[00:07:55]Okay. So why the [ __ ] would you sell it?

[00:07:58]And the next question becomes if it's a growth industry if it's a if it's an appreciating asset why the [ __ ] can't you run it better? Like what the [ __ ] is stopping you? This is a Canada post that's dying. Okay, it's not like that.

[00:08:12]It's dying for a reason. The technology changed. This is a booming business that can't you just find some people in Canada, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto.

[00:08:27]Find some people who can run the [ __ ] airports better and give good service to Canadians at a rational price.