Its okay Ben, the gov. seems to like to sell the good stuff.
I bet we find the liquor stores all up for sale next... heck why not sell them, they are way to profitable to hang onto !

Or should i have just said"Ditto" to what Mr. Meisner wrote.

It's over it is sold,get on with it,nothing worse than having sellers remorse.And as if Lil Collin or Dan Rogers could have had any say in the matter,c'mon Ben it seems we are kicking a dead horse here.
Rock

The problem for BC, of course, is that there are many more horses in the stable. One may be dead (BCRail) but many others are alive and well and ripe for government to ride off into the sunset. BC Hydro is pretty skittish right now.

Lost opportunities:

$1 Billion over 6 years.

A chance to move the rail lines out of downtown as part of a deal.

A chance to make BC an open port status for all rail lines in North America through a public ownership of the tracks, and service charge for all transportation rail companies operating on the lines opening up competition to a minimum of three rail operators rather then being held hostage by a monopoly.

The right for BC to regulate the safety standards of our rail lines runing through our back yard.

Time to end the hyperbole on the sale of B.C. Rail.
Loaded rail cars to the USA travel over different Railways, and each Railway that handles a car is entitled to a division of the total freight charges paid by the shipper for the transportation of the car. If a car is loaded on the BC Rail in Prince George and Routed to ChicagoIllinois via BC Rail to North Vancouver and then Burlington Northern Rail to Chicago at a freight rate of $7000.00 BC Rail would get approx $2000.00 for hauling the car to North Vancouver and the BN Railway would get the rest to haul the car to Chicago. If the BC Rail gave the car to the CP Railway in North Vancouver the same division of the Freight Charges would apply. The BC Rail could not extract any move revenue from the connecting carriers in North Vancouver and had to be content with what they received. This situation is partly the result of the BC Rail being a shortline railway.
Now that CN Rail owns BC Rail they handle the car from Prince George to Chicago via CN Rail, Duluth Winnipeg and Pacific Railway and the Illinois Central Railway however they do not have to share the Freight Charges with the other Railways because they own them, so they get the whole $7000.00. On traffic that they do have to share, they still get the majority of the revenue because they haul the car the most miles.

BC Rail traffic to North Vancouver for Export overseas would only generate approx the same revenue per car ($2000.00) and if they tried to increase their rates they ran into truck competition, and major complaints from Industries located on their lines,who naturally did not want any freight rate increases.

With the shutdown of the coal mines at Tumbler Ridge the BC Rail lost a major source of income,(Millions of dollars per year) CN Rail lost the Prince George to Prince Rupert portion of the coal income also in the millions but because of its size it could absorb this loss, BC Rail couldnt. CN rail now handles all traffic to the USA from Ft Nelson to Williams lake through Prince George and then East. They also handle some traffic destined to Vancouver to Jasper and then West to Vancouver.
Because of the economys of scale CN Rail can make a huge profit by owning the BC Rail, and handling this traffic through Prince George, at major savings.

BC Rail as a stand alone company never did and never would be able to make those kind of profits.

The issue here should have been that if BC Rail was to be sold, it should have been sold to CP Rail, or the Burlington Northern Railway, the shippers in the area would have had some valid competition for CN Rail and would have been able to negotiate better freight rates. As it now stands CN rail for all intents and purposes is a monopoly in this area and shippers will pay the price for this down the road. It will become very hard to negotiate rates with CN Rail.

Because of the politics around this issue the real issue of creating a monopoly in this area was overlooked by all the so called experts who have debated this issue. Im sure that CN Rail will be forever grateful that the monopoly issue was never raised.

This issue has been beaten to death. Its time to move on.

Revenue and net earnings are two different things. Revenue needs to pay expenses like wages, taxes, interest expenses, which BC Rail had plenty. Ben's simplistic argument sidetracks the main point which has been lost in the whole BC rail issue. Does a government need to be in the railway business? As most enlightened people will acknowledge(ammonra excluded), governments don't do many things well. Health care, education, and the latest indian affairs travesty in Ontario are more than governments can handel. Why do we need to be in the railway busines? Or the liquor sales business? If its because the government can make money for there respective citizens then why not have government run grocery stores and gas stations, like the succesful Russian model? Governments have there hands full with health ,eduation and the military. The private sector can handle railroads and liquor stores. Making this a municiple election issue is counterproductive. Kinsly's opinion on the BC Rail sale is irrelivant in this election to every one except the labour goons and there faithfull followers. The rest of us know he had no say one way or the other but had the balls to stand up for his beliefs on the matter. Kinsley has been on the right side of more issues than not.

I would have to say I'd agree with you dow15000, simply due to the proven fact that governments for some reason seem to make absolutely lousey business people. Perhaps its because there's always a constant flow of taxpayer money into the trough for them, and if you fritter away a few million here and there, --- well, no worries, there's plenty more where that came from.

Anyone who's owned and operated his own business can quickly point out how critical it is to budget every single penny, and how one mistake could sink years of struggling to balance the books in a heartbeat!

Of course, when you create a monopoly for your business, such as ICBC, or the Gaming commision, then you can pretty well be assured you can make a profit, by simply eliminating any and all the competition. Then you can go around patting yourself on the back, telling yourself how wonderfull you are as a successfull "businessman" or woman, whatever the case may be.

Theoretically, this should have been the case with BC rail, as well, and even if it was being run by people with poor, or no business experience, it should have been able to show a tidy profit regardless. The fact that it apparently didn't, under the NDP, pretty much puts the writing on the wall, at least in my opinion.

Now one could argue that the BC Liberal Government is made up of far more business people than the union heavy NDP governments ever will be, and therefore, should be more likely to be able to successfully "run a railroad", and maybe, just maybe, that would have been true.

However, every successfull businessman, or woman, knows that like it or not, sometimes the right thing to do for a business is just to sell. That descision is not always an easy one, -- especially if part of the cost of doing that costs you your very valued work force, or instills any kind of hardship in doing so in any way, but you know that if you don't do this, that they will be losing their jobs anyway, if the business goes under! So you make the choice, sell now while the business looks attractive to a potential buyer, and hope that the new owner keeps your ex-employess on the payroll, with their experience a priceless asset to the success of the new owner, or let it "die on the vine", and everybody lose.

Since I have no access to inside Government information regarding the real figures, projections, outlook, etc., for BC rail, I have no way of judging in my own mind whether or not I think this sale was a good move. Yes, I too was hurt a bit by the sale, but in my mind, if the sale was for the better for ALL British Columbians, and not just a handfull of disgruntled gov't union members, then so be it, -- I support the move, because of that fact.

Yes, CN will make money from this railroad, --- why else would they cough up a billion bucks for it !! One must keep in mind, they are a private business, and don't have the endlessly filled trough to run back to every time they need a few hundred million bucks to experiment with. So for them, its swim or sink, and I sure hope they keep swimming on this one, before we find it too, owed by the Americans.

And that's my opinion.