Assets On the Books (of Canada) and not

Non Financial Assets $66,581 million - Pension and other future Liabilities $204,341 million

 

Dear Minister,

 

Is it not astounding that the recorded value of Non-Financial Assets -"tangible capital assets, which include land, buildings, works and infrastructure such as roads and bridges, machinery and equipment, ships, aircraft and other vehicles" (Pg 1.13 Public Accts) at March 31/11 was but $66,581 million, while the Public Sector Pension, other employee & veterans future benefits Liability totals $204,341 million?

 

Are some of the lands under Confederal control NOT included in these Non-Financial Assets?

 

Are the Crown lands now being harvested of raw materials above and below ground NOT counted?

 

I imagine if we did include the market value of all those assets, our balance sheet would look tremendous!

 

Further, As a registered real estate salesperson in Ontario, I wonder whether if we did bear in mind the market value of the lands, perhaps we'd be inclined to charge a more reasonable-rate-of-return price from the developers? or get shares in the projects as we did with the General Motors investment that apparently (Pg 1.9) produced an as-yet-unrealized gain representing "a significant portion of the $2.1 billion in other comprehensive income".

 

My goodness, if we really put the assets of Canada to work, we could reduce the government's reliance on "the ability of the country's taxpayers to finance it" (Pg 1.12, 2nd para on Net Debt)

 

Speaking of servicing the debt, the $30,871 million (table 1.1 on pg 1.15) in Public Debt Charges represents:

- 13% of $237,091 million in Total Revenue;

- 92.5% of Annual Deficit;

- is exceed in amount only by - Ministries Program ($71,119 million) and Old Age Security/GIS & Spouse's Allowance ($35,629)

Are we spending any effort to reduce this budget-breaking interest burden?

 

Effective average Interest rates on the unmatured debt ($591,155 million) cannot be expected to remain at 3.1% forever (although the 6.3% paid on $204,341 million Public Pension and other liabilities does seem perpetual -effective rates noted on pg 1.11) and as rates move back to normal the cost to service will creep up (as it did in late1970's) breaking the budget even further.

 

Sorry to put so much in one note ... but it's all related.

 

Truly,