Ontario could sell off of crown corporations like "selling the family silver"

Deficit is pretext for getting commercial assessment on lottery sales, hydro, liquor stores

Dalton McGuinty's Ontario Liberals have hired two banksto look at selling off crown corporations such as Hydro One Inc., the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and Ontario Power Generation.

"How many more times are we going to go around the block on this issue?" asked Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. "We beat back privatization under Mike Harris and we were pleased when Premier McGuinty rejected the recommendations of the Lacey panel in 2005 that called for parts of the LCBO to be sold off to the private sector."

The sell-offs could prove costly to Ontario. Economist Erin Weir calculates the government could loose three dollars for every dollar it gains from selling the LCBO in an article on the Progressive Economics Forum.

In 2008 the LCBO earned more than $1.4 billion in profit, whereas sales of the corporation for an estimated $10 billion would generate only a half billion annually in reduced debt service fees.

Links and sources
  OPSEU news
  Progressive Economics

Posted: December 16, 2009

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