ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the issues raised by port decentralization drawing upon the examples of two national cases, France and Canada, where different but parallel processes have taken place. It demonstrates that a change in governance can produce a change in policy orientation among smaller ports. Different levels of government present different degrees of proximity to the institutions being governed. Public ports may be administered by different levels public administration. The French State had been neglecting the funding of ports for some considerable time, and as the national auditor has indicated, there has not been a national ports policy. In Canada, devolution of the small and medium sized ports has resulted in the appearance of a large number of types of port authority. Despite the rhetoric about avoiding competition and promoting regional development, it is evident that ports are bound by commercial imperatives.
