Meaning, crown corps, where equity is 100% state owned, but operations are wholly managed by a consumer coop where every Canadian resident is a member by default.
Crown corps in the traditional sense are kinda the same as normal corps, but where the board of directors is appointed by the respective minister/minister’s office instead of shareholders.
What I’m talking about is a crown corp where the board of directors responsible for operations is voted in by Canadian residents.
I like to do business mostly with consumer coops (credit unions, grocery coops and so on). For the majority of things, they’re managed very competently in my opinion, so “public is too stupid for more democracy” is pretty much a redundant critique.
I come from India, where state owned corps are notoriously corrupt. Direct accountability to the taxpayer instead of indirectly via Parliament would be a better way to represent taxpayer interests imo.
TL;DR - Crown Corps don’t go far enough, get raided by politicians, and sometimes aren’t juiced enough to repel private interests.
I have some reservations about this in the sense that it doesn’t go far enough to solve some of the issues that are evergreen, but now are critical. I’m sure most would agree that there’s a lot of logic to have a public corp operate what are accepted Public Goods (transportation, healthcare, utilities). But simply creating a Crown Corps that holds the status of 100% state owned doesn’t solve some of the more prominent issues with these corporate vehicles.
I’ve said as much before, but I believe that the politician is both the most flexible and the weakest unit in the chain. Politicians are lobbied (possibly to the point of corruption), corporations with global shareholders have interests that go beyond the jurisdiction, and public corporations (Crown Corps) that become successful are targets of acquisition via…the Politician.
Drawing inspiration from the experience of Danielle Smith’s CorruptCare in Alberta, and the so-called “War Room” of Premier Jason Kenny’s years, I would want a fully autonomous Public Corp that is completely divorced from the politician, and focused solely on the provision of the Public Good in question with some hard baked fiduciary requirements: to focus on the targeted jurisdiction, to include stakeholder consultations (community, municipalities, interest groups), to have quarterly reports to a multidisciplinary committee of experts (economics, health, social workers, lawyers, emergency response, military, engineers, agriculture, aviation, environment, accountants etc.), and to respond to these stakeholders and experts in semi-regular town hall styled discussions. In this environment, the Office of the Ethics Commissioner would be free to engage in all discussions, and publicly weigh in on any issues that arise.
The government in question would simply seed the Public Corp by handing over property and be on a list of preferred service providers on the understanding that the Public Corp would operate in the public interest, and at a preferential rate like as if the property in question is completely undeveloped. In turn, the Public Corp would be essentially unbound, and allowed to develop property, invest, grow, make loans, and create other corporate entities, unfettered by the threat of hard baked backdoors where the politician may be tempted to raid the cookie jars of successful Crown Corps for money, install cronies, and peddle influence.
In exchange for this unusual arrangement, because the Politician is normally the interface for the public, the Public Corp makes some binding vows. Off the top of my head to never sell out to foreign interference or designated opposing forces should be an easy one. Another example is Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation. Besides the most elementary focuses on providing safe, reliable public transportation, MTR is bound to only make investments that are expected to bring returns on investment. We could also build in some kind of mechanism of greater punishment for anyone involved with the Public Corp that later is found to be stealing or involved in corruption.
We can also use the Scandinavian Model by basically having the Public Corp aim for 51% of the market.
Alberta nearly had that with its Alberta Health Services, but the UCP and Danielle Smith have destroyed it.
BC had something similar with its ICBC, but I understand some of ICBC’s success was just too tempting over the years.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/icbc-proposed-class-action-lawsuit-1.5483879
If the corp is owned by the gov’t then it can’t be owned by the workers. The equity is the ownership. What could be done is the gov’t could be extending loans or provide grants, plus act as a customer that pays for the service the coop provides. For example the gov’t wants to build low rise units, it helps establish this coop construction firm and gives it a contract to build units in Montreal. The coop takes that and fullfils the project.
With that said, this may not be in the rest of our interest as the firm might start prioritizing other private contracts that its workers deem more profitable. This is why, the gov’t has to maintain some form of ownership, whether full or some controlling share scheme line PRC-style golden shares.
I’m not proposing worker coops. I’m proposing consumer coops.
Government equity ownership means the consumer coop can’t just decide to privatise by itself or take on debt secured by equity.
The model I’m proposing is how most public housing works (government raises capital, builds housing which is government owned). Maintenance of that housing/other admin work is handled by housing coops (effectively consumer coops).
Sure, worker coops can be preferred while giving contracts (like an architecture worker coop, landscaping worker coop and so on). But the operations of the crown corp itself are conducted by a consumer coop.
Oh I see. Yeah maybe.
