Public ownership has been an experiment in
Canada to do things that are necessary, but that no private individual, or entity would do, because it is too difficult, too expensive, or there is not enough profit. Or all three. Then, the
public sector must step in.
A classic example is the CBC. Another is the long privatized Air Canada, and the privatized CN, the former national railway, now a player in continental transport.
The CBC, or national broadcaster, was created to allow Canadians to talk to one another, and to provide another voice in the air to at least equal the cacaphony radiating up from the border.
Air Canada, originally call Trans-Canada Airlines, was formed to service the great expanses that make up Canada, particularly across the west. It was never so much of a problem to travel north and south, generally from Canada to the U.S., as to travel from, say Montreal to Winnepeg.
Much earlier, the race to build railways across Canada led to the creation of three national railways. Canadian Pacific, or CP, the Canadian Northern, and the Grand Trunk Pacific. The latter two went bankrupt in The Depression. A crown corporation was established to consolidate them as CN, Canadian National.
In Canada, we have always believed in the necessity for cross-Canada communication, or the country will not survive. Hence the railways, the airline, and the national broadcaster.
As these tasks have grown easier, with technology, with the growing population, the paths pioneered, the great risks taken, by the public, and now private players enter the game, many not even based in Canada--a nice way to make new profit, in areas no longer risky.
So often are we told only private entities will take the risks necessary to bring needed goods to market, and only to reap great rewards. History, rarely what we are so often told, shows this is not the case.
Public ownership has succeeded, and is the only hope for a future anywhere near equitable--if that is anyone's goal today.