Public Ownership Models in Canada

Outside of the USA, we tend to think of nationalization in terms outlined by the Soviet Union/Cold War, war mobilization, national security, and/or social programs after the second world war.

In the USA, nationalizations were called "public works" projects to solve employment issues and build infrastructure during the Great Depression and give USA companies a boost. FDR's major public projects like road, damns, hydro power, ports, canals, and airports are what people think of when they think public ownership.

In Canada, after 40 years of neoliberal policies privatizing most of our Crown corporationa, we now think about "services" instead of "production" when it comes to public ownership. We talk about the "public sector" which only includes things like health, social services, schools, and municipal services. Even theses "public sector" employers are increasingly privatized into outsourced companies or quasi-private corporations.

There are still many publicly owned production facilities in Canada and around the word. Energy, media, telecommunications, water/waste-water, and transport sectors have moved in and out of public ownership.

The reason for this is that they have an existential element: life is not possible without these services.

There are many ways to understand "public ownership" of something.

The state can:

• directly own the asset
• employ workers to provide a service or build things
• control the inputs
• regulate the process
• create, coordinate, subsidize, and/or set the rules of a private market
• directly subsidize production through purchasing, paying for the expansion of production
• pay for access to the service for low-income people
• set a profit rate and/or a price

The neoliberal period has been characterized by a large net flow of wealth into the private sector from the public. During this time, "keeping things public" and stopping privatization was the focus. Rarely during the neoliberal period have we had mobilizations for expanding public ownership.

However, even during the previous 40 years, there as been movement of services, production, and assets into and out of public ownership.

Under capitalism, governments have a need to regulate private actors. In certain circumstances they are forced to nationalize. These nationalizations are almost always during crises to solve a political or economic problem.

For services that are existential, when crises threaten the viability of services and production that affects life, governments are forced to intervene in the private markets.

The history of the utility sector is full of these state interventions.

In the West, national ownership is usually framed in terms of 1900's capital's fight against the communist ideology. This "ideological" distinction has been useful for capital to describe nationalization.

• Left: public ownership and regulation
• Right: private ownership and free markets

However, nationalization usually does not happen because of ideology. Instead, it is used by capital to:

• have companies bailed-out
• receive a profit subsidy
• invest where the private sector will not invest because it is not profitable
• fix private sector failures

There is much easier access to the debt-levels needed for investment through state-ownership than the private markets.

Public ownership has many different models and histories. The structure of ownership usually fits what the investment is trying to achieve.

• Production: energy, media, vaccine, national security
• Monopoly: electricity, roads, utilities, water, transit
• Remove the profit motive: electricity, health care, libraries

There has always been a continuum when it comes to public-to-private ownership.

And, how we talk about ownership heavily depends on the direction it is heading, the goal, and what interests are involved.

The reasons for moving ownership into the public can range. They include:

• Failure of private investment
• Failure of private markets
• Public interest not met by profit seeking monopoly
• Efficient distribution of a product or service
• Ideology/nationalism
• Geopolitical situation (war/imperialism)

We currently seeing a renewed push for public ownership because of the many crises happening all at once:

• climate change
• global health crises
• technological change
• geopolitical conflict
• economic recessions

Some example of the current crisis driving public/state ownership:

• Nuclear/energy costs EDF nationalization
• Rail bankruptcy in the UK
• Trusteeship of Gazprom in Germany
• Uniper natural gas in Germany nationalization
• Remunicipalization (energy, utilities) in UK/Europe.
• German energy "co-ops" using Feed-In Tariffs
• Canada Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Oil Pipeline nationalization
• Long-term care during the pandemic: Military and public hospital take-overs.
• Vaccine/biologics production with National Research Council
• Public-Private Partnership failures: Hamilton waste water, Ottawa recreation, London, UK transit
• New road construction in Ontario
• Food production insourcing University of Toronto
• Cleaning during COVID: custodial insourcing Wilfrid Laurier Univeristy
• Natural disaster events, emergency response, and lack of private insurance coverage.
• Microchip supply chains: USA $60B CHIPS Act
• Mask shortage and production in Canada/USA

1. What kind of crisis would bring about nationalization of:

   • Internet Network
   • Infrastructure
   • Communications backbone infrastructure
   • Media/culture/news production
   • Security infrastructure
   • Rural access
   • Emergency infrastructure
   • Energy
   • Transport

2. What parts of companies are vulnerable to crisis?

   • Videotron
   • HyrdoOne
   • Cisco Systems
   • Bell/Rogers/Cogeco

3. What plans/campaigns would be useful to promote for bargaining around public ownership?

   • Crisis response
   • Investment
   • Public goods/public interest
4. What examples exist for us to copy?
5. What is the role of workers and their unions in preparing for crises?
6. How do we start making the argument in a way that supports bargaining, brings the public onside, and supports the continuation of our services?