Obviously telecom. We used to own our transatlantic cables, now we barely have one and we don't own it.
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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That's a very good point. Telecom infrastructure is so important. And because it's privately owned, it's not extended to every corner of Canada or in communities in far regions. We rely on things like Musk's Starling to bring internet to northern communities.
When electricity was made public in Québec under René Levesque with Hydro Québec, the broken down private electricity production and distribution networks were fixed, updated and expanded across the province. It's become the pride of Québec and a god damn good example of how these essential services need to be provided.
it's not extended to every corner of Canada or in communities in far regions
Fuck dude, I live in a major metropolitan area and I still don't have access to Fiber.
It's become the pride of Québec*
* Not available in Sherbrooke, parts of Magog and parts of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu. They have their own pride there! But that's cool to!
The Coaticook MRC, MRC du Granit (and others) have their own fiber deployments!
About Sherbrooke:
En 1963, le gouvernement québécois réalise la nationalisation de l’ensemble des compagnies privées d’électricité sous l’égide d’Hydro-Québec. Comme cette nationalisation ne vise que les compagnies privées, les municipalités peuvent continuer d’administrer leur propre réseau. Cependant, depuis cette date, plusieurs municipalités ont cédé leurs installations à Hydro-Québec. Hydro-Sherbrooke est aujourd’hui le plus important réseau d’électricité municipal du Québec. La Ville de Sherbrooke supporte activement l’AREQ, soit l’Association des redistributeurs d’électricité du Québec, qui compte neuf réseaux municipaux et une coopérative d’électricité.
So those that were already public remained so, but are part of the association of electricity redistributors. They remain public. Only the private ones were nationalized under Hydro Québec.
Yeah exactly! Pretty cool, it's not even a separate crown corporation or non profit, it's just a municipal service. Sherbrooke also allowed some crypto farms to set up shop, but instead of rolling in the profits with the profits generated by Hydro Sherbrooke into the municipal budget, they created a separate wealth fund. One of the three dam is the oldest functioning dam in Quebec. Truth be told, they only produce around 8% of the electricity used by the city, the rest is purchased from HQ. But still a cool and unique model. Definitely something that would apply really fucking well to fiber deployments (and even other telecoms like cell towers)
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Rail.
Absolutely.
CN used to be a crown corp but was privatized in the 1990's under Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives. Thatcherism and neoliberalism at its finest.
CP Rail has always been private.
It's a key infrastructure that should definitely be publicly owned.
Via Rail is also a crown corp though.
Via Rail operations are at the mercy of CP and CN given their ownership (and lack of maintenance) of the tracks, though.
Precisely why CN needs to be re-nationalized. They're in the way of getting half-decent passenger rail going.
I think Via needs to make substantial changes to become half-decent still, but that would still improve it.
Food supply lines.
Yeah, I read in some other thread that the Canadian wheat board was Saudi owned. Here's a source that confirms it. And of course it was Harper's doing. This is essentially what made me ask this question here.
Food production and distribution should absolutely be owned by Canada. It's insane that something so fundamentally important is at the mercy of foreiegn interests, especially those with whom we are now in a trade war.
How nobody did anything about this the entire time the Liberals were in power, and especially now, is mind boggling.
Anything that is considered a utility or necessary for the function of a nation state, including all schooling, health care and other socially important services.
Isn't that already the case though? Aren't hospitals and schools mostly public except for a few private ones?
Maybe make them ALL public and forbid any private for-profit health care and education facilities. This will force the more priviledged to invest in that system if they want the best service for themselves and their children.
Didn't some Scandinavian country do this already?
There's a difference between hospitals being public and health care services being public. Drugs for chronic conditions. Dentistry. Optometry. Psychiatric services. Proper handling of transport costs for people not living in large cities who urgently need to see a specialist (Ontario's reimbursement program for that is joke-worthy). Hospital equipment—constant fundraisers to replace things should not be required. There's so much stuff that falls between the cracks under the current setup that really should be covered by the government.
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schools mostly public except for a few private ones?
About those exceptions...
Public money shouldn't be going to private schools.
If you want your kid to be in some elitist private school, you should pay the entire cost. Otherwise the public system is always an option.
Diverting public funds away from the public education system just weakens the public system.
Yeah, that's what I was trying to say about some Scandinavian country.
In Finland it is forbidden to have private schools. All education is public. So if some rich family want what's best for their kids, they'll have to invest in the system like everybody else.
How I read the question is what should be nationalised, not what else should be.
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I'll start: Energy. Everything from oil/natural gas extraction, transformation, transportation and sales to nuclear enrichment, nuclear electricity production, hydro electricity production and distribution.
Here's another: mineral extraction and lumber exploitation.
Cloud data storage and services.
That's not essential. It's very practical. But we can do without.
We could, but right now we're not and we have a whole lot of government shit backed up on Azure and likely AWS servers.
Too many government services use it.
Loblaws and subsidiaries
How about subsidized grocery COOPs? Would that work?
No because of the distribution side. Unless the dustribution also goes COOP. But you asked for nationalization. Loblaws does both distribution and retail so narionalizing it solves the problem.
Can crown make a cheaper internet company or is that against corpo rights or something? It would be nice if we have a cheaper option for phone and internet.
I'm going to give a bit of an odd one here.
Nobody in Canada should own land other than the federal government.
All land used by everyone should be leased from them.
This includes everything from the property with your home on it, to uranium mine, to national parks. Everything.
And then we attract pricks into the federal government who ignore rules and they evict everyone overnight so that they can build a resort for themselves.
Look, I get the sentiment, but this sort of centralization is scary.
I mean... they can already evict people from land they privately own. It's called "expropriation" and it happens fairly regularly in Canada.
Not sure why this would change anything related to that.
Then how would your proposition change anything, except that the government would have even less reason to pay private citizens after forcing them to move?
It changes the money part of the equation. You could no longer sell your land because you wouldn't own it. The government is the beneficiary of any land value appreciation, not private investors.
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100% agree. Private, inheritable land ownership in the context of a population that doesn't all enter the game at the same time with the same resources available to them is inherently unjustifiable.
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Eeeh.... I dunno. I kind of disagree with that one. I think it's important to allow people to own their own piece of land. Otherwise everyone can risk being evicted from their home by the government and I don't like that idea.
Limiting how much land people can own though... Like how many residential properties. That I could go for.
"everyone can risk being evicted from their home by the government"
A) The government already has a tool to do that, in Canada it's called "expropriation" and they happen fairly regularly.
B) That's actually a feature of this system. People buying up land and never leaving is actually one of the major problems with our current real estate prices. In areas of high demand, if the government just terminated leases and then forced those properties to be developed we wouldn't have the pricing issues we have now. Does this hurt people? yes, but also not nearly as much. Given that property would be much more affordable under such a scheme moving elsewhere wouldn't be nearly as difficult.
I understand your point. But I'm worried about government abusing this.
Yeah you can be expropriated, but usually you either get a fair compensation or have legal tools to defend yourself to a certain extent no?
I think my problem is that I have a certain fear of not being able to own my own piece of land because it's the most essential things to own. It's your own little part of the world where you are in control.
The First Nations never had our concept of owning land. The land owns us. So we should respect it - or it will all end up looking like a strip mine eventually.
I can't argue with you there.
I often think about what life here would be like if there never had been any colonization. I wonder what society here would be like.
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Land ownership is already a fiction in Canada.
If I buy a book, it’s mine to do what I want with, for as long as I want.
If I buy real estate, the government still gets to say what I do on/with it, and can take it away if they decide they really want it, or if I stop paying them property taxes. That doesn’t sound like ownership; it sounds like a rental agreement.
Its true. Ultimately all land in Canada is ultimately owned by the Crown and can be expropriated at the gov's desire and no citizen can stop it, no matter what. We do have good laws around being fairly compensated, but you still lose your home, no matter how much you've invested in it or how many generations your family has lived on it. My brother in law just lost his because of a new highway coming right through his house. Yes, he got paid out, but its really hard to see 20 years of hard work and a house you built taken away for a road.
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Plus, a lot of property taxes and other local/regional usage income can be rolled up into the lease payments. What matters is how those leases are calculated, such that small/cheap properties for the working poor lease for almost nothing, but a McMansion (or actual mansion) would lease for a massive amount.
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YES YES YES. Use LVT to replace one of the awful taxes Canadians gripe about (maybe GST, maybe income tax?)
100% replace income taxes.
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Interac, should be made the Canadian equivalent of PIX, managed by the central bank, competing with credit cards
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