In the push to privatize, Fishery Products International Ltd., Air Canada, and Petro-Canada would all leave public hands by the end of 1991. But compared to airlines and oil companies, the isotope business was a tangled mess. The central issue was that it relied on nuclear reactors that would remain in public hands. AECL would continue to operate and maintain the reactors, and its workers would extract the raw isotopes; only the processing, sales, and distribution part of the business was to be sold. That was problematic for the seller as well as for potential buyers. While AECL produced the isotopes, it wouldn’t receive any of the profits.

It really should contain the phrase, in typical right-wing, imaginary hand of the market fashion. No consideration was given to the cost of production and mainentence. – http://www.walrusmagazine.com/print/2011.04-science-a-political-meltdown/