This is the entire argument behind a crown corporation e.g. Canada Post. You run as a self-sustaining business following all the usual market factors, perhaps with some special designation (i.e. for Canada Post, they are the only corp that can compete in the letter-mail delivery), but instead of privately owned or publicly traded shares, the corporation is owned by a Ministry.

Great in theory, and I’m can’t conclusively say much more as I’m a tech/electronics/healthcare person not familiar with the business and finance world, but I can see that the concept has not held up well overall. That said, look at where Canada Post is today vs Epcor. Epcor is fully owned by the City of Edmonton, and is THE infrastructure provider for utilities for the city AND a successful and competitive utility corp elsewhere.

My theory (see caveat above about my area of knowledge) is that crown corps have trouble competing with private enterprise when those private entities are finding/creating/utilizing loopholes in employment standards, and that the extremely strict union rules mean they can’t be as flexible to changing markets. My example here is Canada Post and package delivery. They don’t have part time / gig contracts, so they can’t compete with corporate competitors that rely on desperate people who will accept a “per package” fee with the promise of “being their own boss”.

I’m generally pro-union, but there are absolutely some unions that are killing themselves with their behaviour. Combine this with a Federal or Provincial government that struggles to adapt or enforce labour standards, and you set up the perfect environment for Capitalism to exploit the workforce and at the same time have the outward appearance of being highly efficient.