Ottawa Considering Massive Assets Sale
Posted on Wednesday, September 22 at 09:52 by Perturbed
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/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=0cf5e5cd-467a-4fbd-ae76-7a1b5b702330
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If I stand for my country today...will my country be here to stand for me tomorrow?
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???
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
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.
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
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.
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RickW
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?
This must be one of the "other initiatives":
MPs, judges given 10% pay hikes
http://www.canada.com/national/story.ht ... 4a760e3008