theiceman

not so sure about that ... pretty sure Harris sold it ... in one of the biggest financial Blunders of all time .

https://www.thestar.com/news/queensp...ydro-cohn.html

ronnie993tt

I think Peterson actually started the project, Ray finished it and started the sale which was completed by Harris. I had some involvement between Ray and Harris and if my failing memory is correct, Ray made the decision to sell, Harris simply carried through with the deal which was pretty much a fait accomplis. It was open bidding so anyone could have bought it. The government made a 100% profit in a few years so it was a great deal. The whole purpose was to provide a pay alternative to those who could afford not to be in traffic. All 3 parties were involved so it certainly wasn't Harris's doing. The consortium still owns and maintains it but the OPP police it. I don't know anything about the extensions.

Christien

Who cares who did it, selling it was a terrible idea - there was absolutely no long-term vision there whatsoever. Hundreds of millions of dollars funneled out of the country every year, with the government acting as their collection agency. Nobody wins except the consortium. And depending on when and where you drive on it, you're paying the 2nd highest per-km toll in the world. The only more expensive toll road is Confederation Bridge.

theiceman

Yeah would have long been paid off by now if we had still owned it .

Christien

And we'd either be raking in massive revenues, or have much lower tolls.

Torontoworker

The 407 sale was a perfect example of political ideology vrs common sense. The 407 was originally built as a 'bypass' for the 401 - itself a bypass idea from the 60's where nothing much of importance happened above Steels Ave. (snort) The intent was to make it a mandatory truck route and remove rigs from the 401 unless they had a permit for local deliveries. Then a funny thing happened after the Rae government fell. Three Tory cabinet members that just happened to own truck companies (plus one cabinet member that owned a dealership that sold trucks) made sure that the mandatory part of the 407 sale contract contained no such term. This is why you rarely see a rig on the 407 today as these owners don't want to pay tolls - they'd rather have their drivers start work at 4 am and be half asleep by 3 pm then pay any fees.

The Harris Government was always about business first - Government bad. They had zero ability to work with anyone not supporting this agenda. Selling the 407 was a litmus test for their supporters but the test has failed miserably in that the 407 could have been paid off by today with the tolls going back into the provincial treasury. Its been said that this sale contract is so wildly on the buyers side as to beggar belief that they could be so stupid on the part of the Harris government. But my take is that the contract was nothing more than a scorched earth policy (just like the Avro Arrow destruction) so that no future Government could afford to buy the highway back with the clauses they signed off on. We will see the same thing for the LCBO soon. But always follow the investors list and you'll soon see the friends and family plan in play...

We saw the same thing with the Green Energy Act with the Liberals, the HOV lanes, etc etc.

We are on an amusement ride of political ideology and tribal politics. The ride has come back from left of center now and gone full circle back to a rightest slant.

I miss the Bill Davis era where he kept the lights on, kept taxes low and could work with opposition groups so that the Province moved forward. Now we just have political wars where winning for the party is the goal and if the public benefit - its a fluke. We're not alone in that the US, UK and parts of Europe are displaying these traits.

What happened to for the people?

theiceman

don't forget the 525 Million dollar Tax Funded Skydome ..... that was sold for roughly 25 mil.

I think we should have gone ahead and called it the Con Smyth Dome ...
because the Con-Dome is what we would have needed for the screwing we took.

ronnie993tt

As with most arm chair analysis you guys are coming to the wrong conclusion by unknowingly making faulty assumptions due to lack of information. The main one being that the building and operating costs were much higher and the time to completion almost 5 times as long under the government ownership option. The government ownership option required such a massive taxpayer subsidy that it never would have been built. The other thing you're ignoring is risk - which has a high cost - that the government was able to off load on the private sector. There are many other considerations you're ignoring such as the unlikely ability of a subsequent socialist government to keep tolls at an acceptably high rate to spare non user taxpayers support or to keep the traffic levels low enough to make it a viable user pay highway. That's why 3 consecutive governments, Liberal, NDP and Conservative stuck with the original plan. It was the only sensible option.

The LCBO is a totally different case. It's labour, promotion, merchandising, lease and store costs are so high they vastly outweigh any volume buying efficiencies. No one in their right mind would buy the LCBO because it would be out of business in a year in a non-monopolistic competitive environment. That's why my J.Lohr Chardonnay is over $20 in the LCBO and $12.76 Canadian at a private package store on Route 6 in Cape Cod. The LCBO will be eliminated by slowly allowing the private sector sales.

What you should all be bitching about is the fact that legislation has not been introduced to cancel the vastly higher than market renewable energy rates. Eliminating feed in tariffs would immediately reduce electricity costs by about 24%.

vern1

Good points Ronnie. I was involved in putting together the bid for one of the groups and coming up with the financial modelling was for the most part (like much of financial modelling) just wild guesses about traffic volumes, usage take up, toll rates etc. In hindsight its easy to say it was a mistake but the whole idea was to lay it off to the private sector - which is really what they should be doing. The LCBO is a dinosaur that deserves to die

Mark Lue

Since you have his ear, can you tweet him and make another suggestion; to get the Ontario Ministry of Transportation to get off their asses and have a Program to replace all the defective license plates that are falling apart in front of our eyes, it's a F**king disgrace. To help pay for the Program, please suggest cutting cost by getting rid of the requirement for a front license plate and replace only the defective rear license plate.

Thanks

Adamant1971

They already do. It's the drivers that refuse to come in to replace them, in most cases it's free. Unless your plates warranty has expired, in which case you will have to pony up $59. Currently anything at or above BD (first two letters) is free. Since I manage a Service Ontario I sometimes tell people they can get a free plate when I see a peeled plate and that they may get a ticket, every single time I have done this the people don't seem to care. But when they come in years later usually after getting a ticket, then they complain that their plate is no longer covered under the warranty program.

So it's the drivers that need to get off their asses. LOL

Mark Lue

Adamant1971

As are most people. They could do some radio ads or a mailer to build awareness.

I would love to see the front plates gone as well, they are fugly.

Mark Lue

Torontoworker

- That was *planned* as the treasury was going to finance it out of revenue. Now if you *create* a 'hurry up' political situation across the floor and the government 'reacts' to that then yes, it *appears* that the first option takes too long which drives you into the bond markets for financing.

Not true. The original plan was cost recovery. Now if you *frame* it as 'subsidy' you give it a different political spin.

I don't know where all this talk of risk comes from - well I do but that's another right vrs left vrs centralism argument for another day. Ontario has built roadways and highways from the dawn of the auto. There is zero risk when building infrastructure - this has been a red herring thrown up by the Government always fails - private enterprise god like and infallible crew. They simply want EVERY building project in the Province to be one they direct and one which is proven to cost more because these firms are financing on the open markets and adding their mark up to every project. The cost of road construction is pretty simple - material and labour. The difference between each funding/construction mode is one is self financed and the other is market financed. The orginal plan was toll based cost recovery. The morphed into plan was low ball sale price and 100 years of gouging.

You are allowing political ideology to *project* and unproven theory. The 'scary socialists' hordes will rape and pillage. We could go on about the scary right wing tea party types that will slash and burn service and reward the 1% in low tax rates. See how ideology can't be very useful when discussing infrastructure? Its just a fear circle discussion.

But what you are missing is that the sale contract as it was writen in the companies favour created a scorched earth buy back in that no Government would pay such extreme amounts of money. The contract should have been an OPERATING contract and it certainly should not have been one for a century before the highway reverts to public ownership. By that time future generations will perhaps finally be in flying cars like the Jetsons!
.