Former Liberal transport minister Doug Young says he deeply regrets handing control of Canada's airports over to the regional agencies that run them as non-profit organizations because these authorities are gouging travellers and building palatial terminals without due regard for costs.
"I think it was a mistake and now the airlines are feeling the pinch, but at the end of the day it's the traveller that pays for everything," Mr. Young said at an Ottawa air sector conference yesterday. He also said he regrets handing federal air navigation services to Nav Canada, another non-profit organization that he believes lacks the motivation to control costs.
"I don't think there is any incentive for people to be good managers," he said of airport authorities and NavCan.
"What happened was that people got into the airport business with a ticket to print money," Mr. Young said.
"I really do think they have gotten out of line . . . because there isn't sufficient accountability to make sure business decisions are made on a viable basis."
He said that if he "could do it over again," he would discard the non-profit model and instead hand airports to civil servants or the private sector -- and make them more accountable to Ottawa.
Mr. Young served as Canada's transport minister between 1993 and 1996. During that period, the federal government got out of the business of running most airports, handing the land over to not-for-profit airport authorities or municipal governments.
He said he's upset to see airports raising fees for airlines after some have erected mammoth new terminals that he doesn't think are always justified.
Mr. Young singled out the new Ottawa International Airport structure for ridicule, joking that "I am not sure it wasn't built to accommodate the Queen Mary 2."
He said that despite the new building, he has not seen "one new passenger" at the Ottawa airport. "The thing is a hangar."
He said his criticisms do not apply to the agency running the Vancouver International Airport, which he believes has been doing a good job, but criticized airport upgrades in Ottawa, Moncton and Halifax.
The former Liberal MP from New Brunswick said he was misled into handing over airports to the new authorities by business groups who pledged that they would ensure these locally run bodies would be run well.
"That just goes to show that even country boys from Tracadie [N.B.]get taken," he said in reference to himself.
"The problem there was that I believed the crap that I was hearing from the private sector," Mr. Young said. He said he was led to believe community figures "would all come together for the public good" and ensure the airport authorities watched the bottom line.
"[They]told us that they would be far more careful than the public servants who work at Transport Canada; they would manage the public purse; they would worry about costs," he said.
Paul Benoit, chief executive officer of the Ottawa Airport Authority, rejected Mr. Young's criticisms and called him the "former minister of 20-20 hindsight" who's got his facts wrong. "We had a Third World facility we inherited from his government." He says the new Ottawa International Airport has been lauded all round and the local authority was able to cut client fees this year.
Roland Dorsay, CEO of the Canadian Airports Council, said he was fuming in the audience when Mr. Young attacked airport authorities. "Airports are definitely not out of control when they manage their costs," Mr. Dorsay said.
Mr. Young said there should be a review of airport authorities' management and structure to beef up their accountability to Ottawa and taxpayers, but rejected the idea of wresting the airports away from these agencies.
He called on business groups and Canadian travellers to become activists agitating for change at their local authority's annual meetings. "If the airport authorities and their boards and management had operated in the spirit of what was meant back in 1994-95, we'd be a lot better off," Mr. Young said.