A comment made on The Millstone about Enerdu prompted me to write this brief article about the redistribution of wealth in our society. The comment was about the transferring of public assets to private hands.
To many it may seem counter-intuitive to say that government’s role is to take from the many and give to the few. Here are a few examples to illustrate the point:
- From 1982 to 2012, the government disbursed $6 billion to businesses with no repayment expected, in other words,
- The Fraser Institute (a conservative “think-tank”) reports that from 1981 – 2009 federal subsidies totaled $342.6 billion dollars from the federal government. In addition, the provinces gave away $287 billion.
- The Fraser Institute reports that the average subsidy per taxpayer was as high as $3,268 a year. The report claims that “the impact was marginal at best”.
- The federal government has been subsidizing the tar sands for decades – the R&D for extracting oil from tar sands was paid for by us. Once the technology was perfected, it was handed over to private interests so that they can make the profits.
- Royalties paid by tar sands companies are near the lowest in the world – from what I can determine it is around 7%.
- Bombardier has been getting federal money since at least 1966.
- We gave money to a US steel company to buy Stelco. USX reneged on the deal.
- Air Canada – a public asset is sold off at a discount.
- Bruce Nuclear – the government sells off the profitable parts and we are left with the debt.
- CN Railroad – we built that asset over many, many decades. It was sold off to private interests so that they can reap the profits … and they have.
- Petro Canada
- Banks – R&D subsidies for computerizing their system.
- Ontario Hydro.
I want to keep this short but the list of giveaways is long. Hopefully you will see the pattern: the transfer of public assets to private hands. Enerdu is just a small local example – the problem is much deeper. We need more than local protests to stop this pernicious policy that is destroying the fabric of our society.
Robin Sukhu
