Dragon's Den for Privatizing Government Monopolies

My wife and I have a wonderful weekend routine.

I make a "red eye" coffee for each of us on our Gaggia espresso machine, then we settle on the couch with our 2 cats in attendance and chat about all sorts of things, including politics.

Yesterday, Cynthia and I were discussing how to reach and encourage entrepreneurs to create new and profitable business models that could address our GTA commuting and transportation problems. That's when she came up with a brilliant idea!

"What if" she said "there was a Dragon's Den for privatizing government monopolies like the parts of our transportation sector that are publicly controlled and operated?"

With that question, the creative juices began to flow  ….

Like the current Dragons Den, the format would include a small panel of experts that would receive entrepreneurs to hear and critique their business ideas related to replacing or augmenting an existing public sector monopoly with competing, pay-for service, private sector alternatives.

The panel could include current or former political leaders who understand government and business. Likely candidates: Mike Harris, John Tory, Bill Gairdner (Author of 'The Touble With Canada - Still'), John Manley, Maxine Bernier.

An important role of the panel would be to identify the monopoly roadblocks that government has imposed to deter or prevent private sector competition. These identified roadblocks could feed action items for politicians to act upon so that the proposed business models could become viable.

The business proposals could come from anyone with a good idea - whether it is an individual citizen or a major domestic or international corporation.

Some of the problems we face in Ontario are similar to those that have been addressed successfully in other countries or Canadian jurisdictions. To hear the visions of entrepreneurs as well as the success stories of existing business enterprises, and their discussions with the expert panel concerning their viability in Ontario, would make this version on the Dragon's Den as compelling as the original one..

Now all we need to do is to take this idea to the Dragons' Den to see what kind of traction we can get on the idea.   :-)