Sun, April 11, 2004

Source: http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Ottawa/Greg_Weston/2004/04/11/416491.html

Flush with government cash

By Greg Weston -- Sun Ottawa Bureau

 
If you thought the sponsorship scandal was a bum deal, the same Liberal government has now flushed $36 million down the drain to buy a toilet paper factory behind Parliament Hill.

It's not that industrial quantities of two-ply aren't always useful around governments perpetually full of you-know-what.

The problem is Canadian taxpayers are once again getting wiped with a pile of their own money.
 

For all the education and health care that could have been bought for $36 million, taxpayers get not a single roll of bumwad out of this dandy deal.

Instead, the government bought the property last fall for a park, and promptly gave the toilet paper plant a lease to stay there for the next 25 years.

Taxpayers don't get a picnic table or even the factory -- we just get to look at the same ugly factory on the same site for another quarter-century.

This is surely the toilet paper deal of the decade, a transaction likely to send the auditor general down the hall.

So much fun with other people's money was the handiwork of the National Capital Commission, the cash-eating federal agency that started out weeding the local tulip beds and wound up buying half of Ottawa for something to do.

The commission is headed by Marcel Beaudry, a Jean Chretien appointee so beloved in these parts that his face currently adorns mock "Wanted" posters being distributed by a campaigning Liberal candidate and pal of Paul Martin.

Among other fiscal follies, the NCC was last seen drafting zillion-dollar plans (thankfully thwarted by Martin) to bulldoze a large section of Ottawa's downtown business core to create a Jean Chretien legacy crater.

In short, the saga of the toilet paper plant is hardly out of character for the NCC.

The property in question is located on the Quebec shore of the Ottawa River, next to the magnificent Museum of Civilization and almost directly behind the Parliament Buildings.

No question about it: The toilet paper plant is a blight on the skyline, and the property would certainly make a beautiful strip of riverside parkland.

An NCC master plan for the area "foresees the site eventually supporting a variety of uses: A new park; a stage for events, activities and interpretation."

The operative word is "eventually."

In the meantime, the NCC purchased the eight-hectare site of the Scott Paper plant last October from the grocery and industrial conglomerate, Weston Inc. (sadly, no relation to your faithful scribe).

So far, so good.

But having paid Weston $36 million for the property, the NCC then leased it back to the company for 25 years for a total amount over that time which, the commission claims, has "a net present value" of $17 million.

For the lucky folks at Weston Inc., the deal effectively provided $36 million cash to invest at returns easily more than double what it is costing in lease payments.

And all without the toilet paper production missing a sheet.

The NCC claims the deal was essential to grab the property now before someone else got it (notwithstanding almost certain expropriation for anyone stupid enough to try to buy the site).

Sources familiar with the transaction, however, say no matter how much the NCC wanted the property, the truth is no one in the Liberal government was about to kick 500 Quebec workers out of their jobs.

But there's more.

In one very important clause in the deal, the NCC agreed to take over the property completely on an "as-is basis at its own risks and peril."

Translation: Canadian taxpayers 25 years from now will be on the hook for any and all environmental cleanup from 100 years of chemical and industrial uses.

And finally, there is the small matter of the monument.

One of the 17 pages in the agreement is devoted entirely to the terms and conditions of the Weston family building a monument to themselves.

This unspecified "suitable commemoration" will be erected in the future park whenever the site stops being used to make toilet paper.

The NCC, on behalf of future generations of angry taxpayers, has agreed to provide "an appropriate and conspicuous location for it (the monument) ... where it can be readily visited or observed by visitors to the property."

Maybe they could call it the Statue of the Broke Taxpayer -- one hand clutching a roll of toilet paper, the other raised in middle-finger salute to the Parliament Buildings beyond.