26 avril 2017

While most Canadians haven’t been paying attention to the airline privatization debate, their gut feeling is that the Liberal government’s idea should stay grounded.

An Angus Reid Institute survey released Wednesday finds 53 per cent of Canadians think privatizing the country's eight largest airports would be bad, with 46 per cent saying their traveling experience would worsen. The federal government has been mulling the possibility of selling Canada's airports to fund infrastructure projects, though no action on this was included in the last budget.

But most people don’t know much about the issue, with 75 per cent saying they hadn’t heard of it or only scanned headlines about it until taking the survey.

“It isn’t really on the radar for a lot of Canadians,” Angus Reid Executive Director Shachi Kurl told BNN.ca.

Respondents were seven times more likely to say airport privatization will make flying more expensive than cheaper. They also raised doubts on safety, with 43 per cent saying privatization would worsen security.

National Airlines Council of Canada CEO Massimo Bergamini is opposed to the idea, saying that though he has issues with the current not-for-profit model, privatization will lead to costs being passed onto travellers and airlines.

"We want airport privatization to be taken off the table so that the government of Canada can focus on fixing the system that we have now." he told BNN last month.

The Vancouver, Calgary and Ottawa airport authorities, and Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu have also spoken against privatization.

But Kurl says it’s still early days and things could change as the government starts to signal which way it’s going.

“If airport or airport authorities are opposed to privatization, then they have a case to make to Canadians and if there are those who say privatization is a good idea, then they need to that case,” she said. “But at this point, Canadians are more inclined to be skeptical of privatization than be supportive of it.”

21 per cent of the people surveyed say airport privatization is a good idea.

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