November 8, 1999

The Onex Finale - THE COMMENTARY

By Joseph Planta

Has Gerry Schwartz had his last bow? Is it over? At least now he’ll have $2-billion dollars saved up. I didn’t study both sides of the issue clearly, but like most things I tried to formulate an opinion. The merger between Canadian Airlines and Air Canada, would have saved the floundering Canadian, but it would spell the death of competition for the Canadian consumer.

Had the Quebec judge not call this proposal illegal, Schwartz would have merged the two entities, simply because he’s a damned Liberal supporter. Canadian Airlines is back to square one. It has nothing, but the troubles it previously had. Schwartz wants nothing of Canadian alone, he wants them both. So Canadian Airlines would have nothing but American ownership, if they aren’t bailed out soon. Canadian Airlines grew out of a Western airline, and so it really didn’t get itself established to be a national carrier. I’m almost prone to saying it had no business being a national airline, if it weren’t built for it.

Mindless dribble? Maybe. But, the fact is having just a government owned airline, that in Air Canada, is nothing but terrible for the morale of our culture and our backbone in business. Think for a moment the precedence it sets for the rest of commerce in our country. If we can’t sustain an airline industry, software giants, car manufacturers and big business of the sort will not want to invest in our country.

I don’t think I agree with a merger of our national carriers, but there would be no other alternative. The country needs a strong business sense, a strong business example. Perhaps that would have rippled through the economy. I think the inevitable will occur. Canadian Airlines will get gobbled up by American and it will spell stability in our air travel industry, for a while. After a while, though we will not be able to succeed in protecting Canadian content, in a Canadian culture and in a Canadian economy.

Questions and comments may be sent to: editor@thecommentary.ca

An archive of Joseph Planta's previous columns can be found by clicking HERE .