Dumb and Dumber

P3's don't save taxpayers money.

This was a costly dumb idea under the Mulroney Conservatives and the Harper Conservatives are going to repeat the same mistake.

The government has reportedly received advice that Edmonton's Canada Place is the most valuable of the nine buildings being considered for sale. It is worth $265 million if sold under a 25-year lease-back deal.

Canada Place was valued at $152 million when the Treasury Board approved its construction in 1984. But in 1988 Kenneth Dye, then the federal auditor general, reported that the new Edmonton home of 3,200 federal civil servants would end up costing taxpayers $100 million too much.

Part of the extra cost was the result of a decision to have Canada Place built privately under a lease-purchase deal instead of having the government build it.

And the irony in this is that it will be public sector workers pensions that will probably ending up owning it.

But Dawson wasn't sure how a benefit for business can work for the government.

"They're not in business and they're not necessarily going to re-employ that money at any kind of a return."

As for possible buyers for Canada Place, Dawson said large pension funds may be interested.

The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) now invests 45% of its assets outside Canada, up from 36% in 2005. Ontario Teachers' Pension Fund increased the percentage of non-Canadian assets in its equities portfolio from 56% in 2005 to 66% in 2006. OMERS has increased its foreign assets from 29% in 2000 to 39% in 2006.

With almost $500-billion in combined assets, the five top Canadian pension funds are getting a bigger piece of the global play book.

Not surprisingly, Canadian pension funds are now viewed as virtual private equity groups, says David Mongeau, of U.K.-based Avington International, a global mergers and acquisitions advisory firm that stickhandled a number of recent deals including the Legacy REIT sale with Caisse de depot, and the BCIMG purchase of the Canadian Hotel Income Properties Real Estate Investment Trust.

See:

Minister of P3

Mr. P3

Super P3

Public Pensions Fund Private Partnerships

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Death of the Family Farm

As I have written here before, the push to end the Wheat Board comes not from Johnny and Janey Canuck the family farmer who goes to work in order to keep their farm afloat, but from the corporate millionaire farmer the modern face of agri-business.

His neighbours are not fellow farmers, they are competition he would like to eliminate.

"Nearly all large scale-farmers would say take away the monopoly," says Gary Pike, a Calgary-based agricultural consultant whose clients include many of the country's most successful growers. "There's a fundamental belief [among the public] that the board is bringing a big premium for farmers, but full-time farmers can pick off opportunities much better than the wheat board," he said. "They can take their marketing into their own hands."

Mr. Doerksen is a good example of what he's talking about. Something of a rarity today, Mr. Doerksen is a prosperous farmer. At a time when more than half of prairie farmers are either losing money or barely breaking even, the 32-year-old university graduate has annual revenues in excess of $1-million and takes three holidays a year. Last winter, he took his family to Costa Rica.

He has a degree in agriculture and regards his farm as a business as opposed to a livelihood. He's at home in the arcane world of agricultural futures, and he's equally adept at building relationships with customers. He recently bought a fleet of trucks as a way to provide better service to the food companies that buy his lentils and other non-wheat board crops.

The corporatization of farming in Canada continues supported by the Harper government.

Long-term farming decline continues

Thousands more farms and farmers disappeared through the first half of this decade, continuing a steady long-term decline that began six decades ago.

But thanks to increases in efficiency, the size of farms and government support, the value of their produce has increased, and increased more than their costs.

Those are among the key findings of Statistics Canada's "Snapshot of Canadian Agriculture" from its 2006 census, released Wednesday, that also revealed there are more "million dollar" farms than when the previous census was conducted in 2001 but also more farmers working off the farm to supplement their farm incomes, especially in the economically booming Western provinces.

Farms, meanwhile, got bigger, with the average size increasing eight per cent to 295 hectares from 273, leaving the amount of land devoted to farming in Canada virtually unchanged at just over 67.6 million hectares.

While Canadians often think of Canada as a major agricultural nation, Statistics Canada noted that a comparison with seven other countries that have conducted a farm census over the past decade revealed that Canada "despite its size has by far the smallest proportion of total land that is agricultural at only 7.3 per cent, mainly because of soil quality and the nature of the Canadian climate and terrain."

And Canada had the third-smallest amount of land devoted to farming of the eight, which included the U.S., Britain, France, China, Brazil, Australlia, and Argentina.

Still, Canada's farmland was increasingly productive.

Meanwhile, the proportion of farms with inflation adjusted gross receipts of $1 million or more increased to 2.6 per cent of all farms in 2006 from 1.8 per cent, and those "million-dollar" farms accounted for more than a third of all farm receipts.

Hog farms were the most likely to be "million dollar" farms, with 18 per cent of them falling into that category, followed by poultry and egg farms. In contrast, only two per cent of field crop farms, which are the most common in Canada, were.

Two-thirds of farms, or most, had gross receipts of between $250,000 and $1 million.

However, just 55.8 per cent of farms earned enough to cover their costs.

"Million dollar" farms were the most likely to cover their costs - 86 per cent did. However, more than one quarter of the smallest, with receipts of less than $25,000, also did, mostly fruit and vegetable farms, or greenhouse, nursery and floriculture operations, and many of them located in urban areas.

Still, nearly half of all farm operators also worked other jobs or businesses, up from just under 45 per cent in 2001, with 20.2 per cent working more than 40 hours in other jobs. Slightly fewer were working full time on the farm - 46.7 down from 47.7.

Report highlights

LIVESTOCK
- Hog farming accounts for only 2.6 per cent of all farm operations but 18 per cent of hog farms report gross receipts of more than $1 million.
- The number of beef farms declined even though the number of head of cattle increased. BSE knocked many farms out of business while surviving farms had to keep cows longer since they could not be exported.
- Fewer chickens are laying more eggs to meet consumer demand.
- Turkey farming increased and birds are getting bigger.

CROPS
- The census found a shift from annual crops like wheat and barley to perennial crops such as alfalfa.
- Wheat, hay and canola are the top three crops grown in Canada.
- Blueberries beat out apples as the biggest fruit crop for the second consecutive census.
- Grape production for use by wineries grew by almost 15 per cent
- The area used for vegetable production decreased nearly 7 per cent.
- Sweet corn is the most popular vegetable, grown in almost one quarter of the total vegetable area.
- For the first time, maple sap was produced west of Ontario.

ORGANIC FARMING
- The census counted both organic farms and for the first time farms transitioning to organic, which is why the numbers jumped from 2,230 to 15,511 farms or 6.8 per cent of all farms.
- Field crops are the dominant organic product.

See:

Global Farmers Fight Back

Farmers Reject Phony Plebiscite

Farmer John Exploits Mexican Workers

Corn Crisis

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Boom and Bust

While inflation in Alberta is 6% annually workers just get by whether unionized or those free riders in the Merit shops. Is it any wonder they are asking for more.

In Alberta, 25,000 electricians, pipefitters, millwrights, plumbers and refigeration mechanics in the oilpatch are in intense negotiations for new contracts and another 5,000 could join them on strike by mid-August if talks break down. Electricians recently rejected a four-year deal offering 5%, 6.5%, 6.5% and 6.5%.

The precedent for robust increases was recently set at Sun-cor Energy Inc., where 2,100 unionized won annual gains of 7%, 6% and 6% over three years, plus a $4,000 lump sum payment, up from a previous contract averaging 3.2% per year and no lump sum.

Meanwhile in the booming Alberta construction sector, wage settlements have gravitated toward the 7% to 8% range over the past two years, up from previous gains of 3% to 5%, said Stephen Kushner, president of Merit Contractors Association, representing non-union employers in the province. About 160,000 of the 200,000 construction workers in Alberta are open shop.

"We can all talk about core inflation and the niceties of that, but for the average person in Alberta, the overall inflation rate is 6%," said Douglas Porter, deputy chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.

See:

$63.90 Per Hour

Molsons Strike

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No Justice In Canada

There is no justice in Canada when it comes to war crimes or white collar crimes.

No charges to be laid in friendly-fire death of Canadian soldier

Bre-X case an "embarrassment" for Canadian law, says expert

Judge sets aside Mulroney ruling on $470000

Also See:

Friendly Fire

Scandal in the Alberta Stock Exchange

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Softwood Redux

Harper said this would never happen again when he forced Canada's Lumber industry to accept his billion dollar bribe to the Americans with his Softwood Lumber Accord.

The U.S. asked an independent panel to resolve a dispute over a softwood lumber accord with Canada, saying the country is ignoring a cap on exports to the U.S. and that Canadian firms are still getting unfair subsidies.

Just like Harpers new formula for Provincial transfer payments were to end the years of bickering over equalization.

Didn't happen.

This is a government that likes to say it doesn't just talk it takes action..... forgetting Newtons Third Law.



SEE:

How The MacDonald Commission Changed Canada

Job Loss It's The Environmentalists Fault

There Is No Free Market

Behind the Eight Ball

US Housing Market Crash

Between a Bloc and A Hard Place

Softwood Republican Slush Fund

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I Am Canadian

And I got screwed by Molson's.

Molson Coors profits rise on Canada business

Molson to close profitable Edmonton brewery, throwing more than 100 out of work

See:

$63.90 Per Hour

Molsons Strike

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Bump

The owner of the Utah coal mine where miners are trapped says it was caused by an earthquake, while the seismologists are not sure.

Murray also angrily rounded on reports on Monday that suggested the mine collapse had been mistakenly recorded as an earthquake.

"This was caused by an earthquake," he said. "It was a natural disaster, an earthquake, and I can prove it."

He said the US Geological Survey had recorded the 4.0 magnitude quake as striking at a depth far greater than the location of the mine.

It could be that rare even known in coal mining as the bump which occurred almost fifty years ago in Springhill, Nova Scotia.

The 1958 Bump which occurred on October 23, 1958 was the most severe "bump", or underground earthquake, in North American mining history and devastated the people of Springhill with the casualties it took, and devastated the town: the mines had been the town's economic lifeblood, and were never reopened following the disaster.

It is not exactly known what causes a "bump." However it is believed that it could be caused when coal is totally removed from a stratum and the resulting geological stresses upon surrounding bedrock (shale, sandstone, etc. in most coal-bearing strata) can cause the surrounding pillars of the galleries to suddenly and catastrophically disintegrate, causing the shaft to collapse.

SEE:

Fox Guarding Hen House

Coal Mine Disaster No Accident

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Beast

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Harper says cabinet shuffle could precede resumption  of Parliament




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Ouch

Fair is fair, I have been trashing the Conservatives today so lets take a look at how Dion's Liberals have been fairing according to Nik Nanos of SES polling;

According to the SES Research tracking, the 10-point Tory lead in May 2006 melted away to a statistical tie on the eve of the Liberal leadership.

Indeed, by the spring of 2007, they had been so successful that Dion trailed Harper by a resounding 25 points on the best prime minister measure.

Of greater concern for the Grits is that, in his home province of Quebec, Dion trailed Harper by 33 points with only 10% of Quebecers giving the nod to their native son.

How bad was it? When the Liberal leader trails an Albertan Tory, a Toronto NDPer and a separatist on the best PM measure -- it has to be pretty grim.

Ouch.



SEE:

Layton and May Winners

Ms. Joe Clark

Waiting For Dion

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WSJ

It's a rare occasion when I agree with Margret Wente. But her comment on the Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the Wall Street Journal hits the nail on the head.

Inside the Journal, you can cut the fear and loathing with a knife. The champions of unfettered capitalism are terrified that somebody is actually practising it on them.

Of course she is not the only one to note the irony of the whining of the WSJ staff and their media sycophants.

All of which means that in an ideal world, the Bancrofts wouldn't let Murdoch within a mile of the Journal. But this is hardly an ideal world, as far as the newspaper business is concerned. I'm not one of the doomsayers who see The End of Newspapers As We Know Them lurking around the next corner, but it doesn't take a genius to see that our industry is in the midst of some of that good old "creative destruction" that the Journal's editorial page regularly praises as the engine of capitalism.

The pro capitalist journalists at the WSJ, purveyors of the American Dream are afraid their will lose their journalistic integrity under Murdoch. Please gimme a break. What do they think that Murdoch will put Bill O'Riley on the editorial board?

And while folks have focused on the WSJ, the Dow Jones publishing company owns other papers which may not share the same fate as the august voice of capitalism. And there are concerns raised about media concentration, in other words good old monopoly capitalism in action.

And before the signatures are dry on Murdoch's purchase of the WSJ there are questions about those in charge of maintaining the journals much lauded editorial independence.

Wall Street Journal watchdog member has Murdoch links

Yep business as usual.



See:

Liberal Or liberal Media

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