GEEZ, EVEN CANADA IS MORE AMERICAN THAN CALIFORNIA:

Gov. impressed by privatization in Canada: As his push for that goal flags, Schwarzenegger sees one of many such projects to the north. (Evan Halper, June 2, 2007, LA Times)

In a trip across Canada this week, as local leaders jostled one another to praise him as a statesman they could learn from, there was a moment when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger might have taken some notes of his own.

At a Vancouver construction site that he dropped by, workers were busily boring a tunnel for the type of public works project that the governor has been unable to get off the ground at home: one owned and operated entirely by a private company.

A 12-mile rail line that will connect Vancouver's waterfront to its airport is one of dozens of ventures like it in Canada. Provinces are turning to private companies to build and operate trains, roads, public hospitals, university facilities — even local schools. [...]

The governor has long championed the sort of large-scale privatization seen in Canada, calling it a solution to bureaucratic inertia and inefficiency in state government. Put services in the hands of the private sector, his argument goes, and the potential for profit will bring a new urgency to providing for the public.

But as other governments in North America and elsewhere move swiftly ahead with such plans, Schwarzenegger's privatization campaign is faltering.

The Second Way can be as sticky as the La Brea Tar Pits, with similar results for the fauna trapped in it.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 2, 2007 7:34 AM