Ottawa considering massive assets sale

Written By: Perturbed
Date: 2004-09-22 09:52:00
<a href="/article/161836410-ottawa-considering-massive-assets-sale">Article Link</a>

Ottawa eyes $3B office sale
Seeking ways to cut costs and pay for health care, Cabinet committee is studying a plan to sell most federal buildings

Robert Fife CanWest News Service
September 21, 2004

OTTAWA - The Liberal government is in the planning stages of a sell-off of 365 office buildings valued at $3-billion in a bid to rein in spending and find funds for health care improvements and other initiatives.
Although no final decision has been made, Scott Brison, the Public Works Minister, is assembling a proposal to dispose of federal property across the country, according to senior officials...........................NDP MP Pat Martin, who said he was briefed on the subject by Mr. Brison, vows a bitter parliamentary fight if the government adopts the planned selloff. \'\'It would be the biggest corporate give-away since the 20-year drug patent protection law,\'\' Mr. Martin said.
\'\'If he does this, we will flip out. It will be a declaration of war as far as we are concerned,\" he said.
\'\'To sell off a fully occupied office building with an anchored tenant like the federal government, that\'s like gold. That\'s a licence to print money,\'\' Mr. Martin said.................the rest:

http://www.canada.com/national/national ... 1b5b702330

Oh boy, this makes perfect sense, then we can pay millions in rent to the corporations who own the buildings!

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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?

Your point is valid. But do consider that the private sector has considerably downsized its infrastructure too. I do not see why the public sector cannot do the same, certainly for funding more worthwile public services that will benefit the People wherever they are rather than buildings generally filled with unaccountable bureaucrats that you cannot reach. The feds and its bureaucracies are definitely bloated and will benefit from some internal reengineering.

I do not favor privatization of the end to end delivery of federal services but would certainly consider certain aspects of the value chain for privatization. If the government "friends" end up benefitting on leasing aspects of this, I would much rather focus on fixing the problem at that level. I would expect our media and my NDP MP to be on the lookout for this. I would certainly like to hear how the NDP would modernize our public services long overdue for an overhaul. Or is this an other Sacred Cow???

Gaulois, I think the problem with selling these buildings, is that these are assets the public (i.e. the tax-payer) has bought and paid for over decades. Past privatizations of assets (such as highways, railways etc.) end up being revealed as highway robbery, sold at grossly undervalued prices. The corps buying them will pay far below fair market prices, and will gouge the government for rent while running the properties into the ground. (Check out the history of Highway 407 in Ontario to see how this happens).

Its also pretty clear this policy is ideologically driven. Scott Brison's main point when announcing it, is that the "core" functions of government did not include being a "landlord". This is actually a piece of gross stupidity. All three levels of government are landlords across the country in the provision of social housing. Many Canadians believe being a landlord in this fashion in one of the most important things our government can do.

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If you don't like these ideas, I've got others. --Marshall McLuhan

Funny how the fiscal conservatives in government can find money. It
always seems to be the change holding up the cushion of future
progress.

I would certainly not go as far as to say this trait is common to all fiscal
conservatives; like any group, many of its members can think through a
problem. In fact, many of the fiscal conservatives I know hate this trend
of paying-down programs with future debt. Its like eating the seed and
wondering why you can't plant next year's crop.

damn this is so stupid ...

who the hell can say this will save money ?
everybody knows that owning your house is less expensive than renting it !

i hate the private sector, if i were in power id buy every bloody building in the country and have the private sector rent from us !

the real estate sector is making TONS of cash ... why the hell would we get out of it ?

plus, if we were the own all the buildings in Canada, we could have our own building crews, wich would stimulate the economy and strenghten our interior market and make us less dependant on exports

apparently we produce enough goods to feed 75 million people, i just cant wait that day ! lol

no more need to sell our goods to other people !

DAMN THE LIBS !
GO NDP ! [even if they neglected Quebec during the elections ! they really could have won seats here but for some reason they didnt even bother

]

Action-Jackson: your scepticism on privatization ideology is highly justified given the Libs and other neocons records with cronies. Flooding the markets with discounted sales on the basis of a privatization ideology does indeed sound bloody stupid and I would hope they know what they are doing... I do not think that the best way to fight this back is through anti-privatization ideology but by playing the game: are we getting fair value for these assets?

Do remember that bureaucrats (in either public or private sector) will get lost in a square box in the absence of leadership and/or scrutiny. I would rather not give them a chance to and focus them on delivering services to People. I do agree that being a landlord is something they should get distracted with.

Last sentence correction: they should *not* get distracted with.

It's about time they did something to revitalize those dreary old government buildings, it must suck to work in those places so privatization would provide a better atmosphere for the workers when they are upgraded. A committee of bureaucrats rarely comes up with innovative solutions but there are private industry experts who can come up with some very ergonomic and friendly buildings - all this and it will save money too.

Quote: "i hate the private sector, if i were in power id buy every bloody building in the country and have the private sector rent from us !" It isn't the private sector, so much as it's when the private sector makes it's profits from the public purse. And in this country it seems, the bigger the corp. the more it leeches from the government. --- RickW

You are right about "a camel being a horse designed by a committee". But it is questionable whether it would save money. That's as easy to prove as trying to catch a greased pig.......

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RickW

as is my nature, i look at the source of the story Canada.com
the zionist Asper organization. Sorry, no credibility there, unless you are talking about it being ok that a small population ensconsed at the top of the pyramid can continue to enrich itself at your expense.

the selling off (monetizing) of FED assets. Who benefits?

What this boils down to is privatizing the profits but socializing the costs. In other words, corporations and government friends of corporations conspirering to rob and/or bankrupt the nation simply because they are greedy pigs. It's not rocket science.

I agree with your view of 3Ps. The problem that I see has more to do with the bureaucrats and the political leadership not being able to manage what otherwise make sense.

"...in a bid to rein in spending and find funds for health care improvements and other initiatives."

This must be one of the "other initiatives":

MPs, judges given 10% pay hikes

http://www.canada.com/national/story.ht ... 4a760e3008