Airports and Asset Recycling in Budget 2026

Budget 2026 gave us new details about a file that a lot of people have been hearing about this year: airport privatization.

The idea of courting private investment in Canadian airports — and perhaps even privatizing them outright — has been discussed in Ottawa for years. But in the past year, it’s moved from a policy proposal being studied, into a thing that is clearly happening. 

And in September, Prime Minister Mark Carney gave new details about the path forward at the landmark Canada Investment Summit in Toronto.

Now, in the 2026 budget we got fresh detail on the roadmap going forward.

What We Already Knew

In September, Carney announced that the government would start with Canada’s four biggest airports — Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.

At the time, we didn’t know the exact details for private investment, except that it would be a plan to “seek private investment through long-term concessions to operate Canada’s four largest airports.”

This long-term concession model means that a big private investor (like, say, a big Canadian pension fund?) would give the government a big chunk of cash, and in exchange they would get to operate the airport, and keep the profits from day-to-day operations.

In September Carney said the federal government will retain ownership of the land, but they expect tens of billions in capital investment, which can then be used for other exciting things: “Regional airports, new local transportation infrastructure, and new nation-building infrastructure, including a sovereign broadband backbone that connects Canadians from coast to coast to coast.”

What We Learned in Budget 2026

In Budget 2026, we learned that the government is looking at 40-50 year concessions for the airports.

We also learned that the government is alive to concerns about consumers getting hosed.

“Operators would be subject to strong oversight to protect travellers and the interests of Canadians,” the budget says.

“The airport fees included in the price of an airline ticket would be subject to clear rules to protect travellers from unreasonable increases.”

This is important. Airports collect an “airport improvement fee” which is used for capital investment in the airport. This fee is tacked on to the price of airline tickets. Airports also charge “aeronautical fees” to the airlines for using the airport. These fees are essentially passed on to the passenger, and included in the price of an airline ticket. The government is clearly aware of the risk of a private operator jacking up these fees.

But airports make money in other ways too: non-aeronautical revenue comes from parking, hotels and other businesses that operate in and around the terminal.

We should be aware that these non-aeronautical fees are the main way that private investors are likely to make money from this scheme. 

It also looks like the Canada Strong Fund — the sovereign wealth fund that Carney’s government created earlier this year — will be involved, and regular Canadians can buy into this whole enterprise by investing in the fund.

Importantly, we also learned that this is going to take a while. The government said in the budget that there’ll be a process that will select an operator by 2029.

The government is budgeting $37.6 million over three years for due diligence, drafting contracts, running the auction and all of the other processes necessary to make this happen.

What Else?

Buried on page 307 of the budget, the government also talks about a broader campaign of privatization. The budget highlights the airports, as well as the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Centre, which is currently in the process of being privatized.

The budget then leaves the door open to more, “opportunities to divest certain federal commercial assets to unlock capital that can be reinvested in other priority projects.”

One interesting element of all of this is that Canada isn’t inventing something new here. This kind of asset “recycling” is actually a well-established process globally. In fact, the World Bank published a handbook on asset recycling just last year.

The fact of the matter is that there are ways for this kind of process to go wrong — we wrote a bit about that in September. The U.K. and Australia had some problems when they privatized their airports.

The biggest takeaway for us in the Budget 2026 is that this whole process is not going to be quick. We are going to be working through it for the next 2-3 years, at least — and that’s just getting to the point where the government has selected a successful bidder! 

We have a lot of work ahead of us, defining a good process, and ensuring that this all works successfully.