On the issue of privatization of airports, you asked which intervenors supported privatization. It wasn't so much intervenors who came in with a specific model they had in mind. In our consultation with experts and academics looking at models, as you've pointed out, in the United States and Australia and elsewhere where the current model exists, one thing that became extremely clear, and somewhat ironic, was that some of the largest investors in airports outside of Canada are in fact Canadian pension funds. We have Canadian pension funds that currently invest in infrastructure, whether it's in the United States, in Australia, or in Europe, whereas in Canada we don't actually benefit from the same level of private investment in our airports.
In terms of the reason we arrived at this recommendation, our chair was David Emerson, who actually was the first airport authority CEO appointed when the government of the day decided to extricate Transport Canada from the management of airports and set up airport authorities. One of the things that became clear to him and to us as a panel was that the current model was not supposed to be the end of the road in the evolution of airport governance, but that when Transport Canada divested itself of the airports, while the current structure of airport authorities would serve for a period of time, for the largest airports at least there would be a path towards privatization. We also heard from intervenors, primarily users—airlines, customers, and travellers—who felt that the existing model did not provide them with a level of accountability for the governance at the airport authorities.
With that type of input and the numerous international examples that we looked at, we decided as a group that as a recommendation, privatization, given what we've seen in the U.K., Australia, and the U.S., and the fact that Canadian pension funds are very active in those investments, would be a recommendation that would not only enhance accountability but also provide the necessary discipline and capital that these airports would require going forward.