TORONTO—Without a federal Crown corporation, there would be no oil pipeline on the West Coast carrying oil from Alberta to markets in Asia. And without this same Crown corporation—Trans Mountain Corp.—there would be no possibility of another pipeline to carry even more Alberta oil across the Pacific.

Canada has long used Crown corporations to develop businesses to meet a goal in situations where there was no established domestic private-sector company either able or willing to meet the need, or where there was a national security issue. In those cases, government acted not only as an investor, but also as an owner. But while Crown corporations were government-owned, they usually operated at arm’s length from government, based on a specified mandate. 

Crown corporations have been pragmatic vehicles used by governments of different political stripes. As a result, Canada has been able to advance and build when the private sector was unable or unwilling to do so. The advantages of government as an investor and owner include its capacity for risk-taking and its ability to take a longer-term view. 

The federal government acquired Trans Mountain in 2018 for $4.5-billion after its American owner, Kinder Morgan, abandoned plans to expand the pipeline. The government of the day determined it was in this country’s interest not to see the project abandoned. At a cost of $34-billion, the project was completed and began shipping oil in 2024. It was only through government ownership that the project was actually built.

The role of Crown corporations could help in achieving a pressing new national goal: advancing Canadian digital sovereignty and Canadian advancement of artificial intelligence. 

Canada Post, a Crown corporation established to deliver mail, could be transformed to deliver data, freeing Canadians from dependence on United States hyperscalers and possible scrutiny by the U.S. government, as well as keeping ownership of Canadian data in Canada. 

If we look at the Toronto Stock Exchange today, we can see a number of major corporations that were originally Crown corporations that were privatized once the need for government ownership was no longer necessary. 

One example is Cameco, headquartered in Saskatchewan, the result of a 1988 merger between federally-owned Eldorado Nuclear and Saskatchewan-owned Saskatchewan Mining Development Corp. Today, it is privately owned, the largest publicly traded uranium company in the world, and the world’s second-largest producer of uranium. 

Nutrien, the world’s largest potash producer and third-largest nitrogen producer, is also a beneficiary of a Crown corporation enterprise. PotashCorp., a Saskatchewan Crown corporation, in 2016 merged with Agrium, another Canadian company, to create Nutrien, now one of this nation’s leading global champions. 

Another example is Hydro One, the transmission and distribution spin-out from Ontario Hydro. 

And then there is CN Rail, with its initial public offering in 1995. CN Rail today is one of the largest rail systems in North America. 

Another example is Air Canada, which was fully privatized in 1989. It has had a rockier history, but is a survivor when many once well-known U.S. carriers have disappeared. 

Bombardier’s success today in executive jets arose from its acquisition of Canadair, another Crown corporation.

All of Canada’s major ports operate as Crown corporations, as do some major utilities, including Hydro-Québec. Other examples include the Business Development Bank of Canada, Export Development Canada, Farm Credit Canada, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Canada Lands Company, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A more recent example is the Canada Growth Fund.

So, looking ahead at the huge risk and high cost of pursuing digital sovereignty, Canada Post could take on a transformed mission in this country to help build the digital infrastructure for the AI age. It has a national mandate on communications, has extensive coast-to-coast sorting and distribution centres, and has some elements of a digital network including MyMoney, which offers users a savings vehicle combined with a debit card enabling users to utilize the money in their accounts.

Its 2025 annual report identifies a number of areas for diversification as mail letter delivery declines. These include an expanded role in financial services, promotion of Canada Shops as an e-commerce platform linking Canadian-owned business with potential domestic customers, multi-channel advertising combining physical products and digital opportunities, and new adjacent services for the digital economy.

Interestingly, its Italian counterpart, Poste Italiane, is looking to hook up with Telecom Italia to form a new digital champion. According to a report in TheNextWeb, the Italian post office is seeking to “put Italian computing capacity on Italian soil rather than renting it from American hyperscalers.” One immediate opportunity is the digital delivery of state pensions. 

What separates Poste Italiane from the hyperscalers, the report says, “is its ownership. It is majority state-controlled.” 

The Italian government “has spent years trying to keep strategic telecoms and computing assets in domestic hands, and a Poste-led group folds neatly into that ambition.”

Like Canada Post, Poste Italiane has outgrown its original mission of mail delivery and has diversified into a wide range of services. Its ambition is to reinvent itself as a cloud provider.

Given the valuable role Crown corporations have played and continue to play in this country’s economy as a vehicle for growth and innovation, and with Canada Post’s assets and mandate, the time has clearly come to examine the role Canada Post could play in advancing our AI ambitions and the broader strengthening of digital sovereignty. What we need now is creative and intraprocedural ambition to seize that opportunity.

With government as the shareholder, Canada Post can take on bigger risks and adopt a long-term time horizon. So, let’s see what we can do—and do it.

David Crane can be reached at crane@interlog.com.

The Hill Times

 

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