CKNW Editorial
for July 8, 1999

It has rightly been said that consistency is the hob goblin of little minds. In fact I’m always even more suspicious of politicians who say such things as “I’ve always maintained …”

With that in mind, I may be about to do a 180 myself on the NHL bailout issue. This is certainly not because I’ve changed my mind on any of the facts … this is bailing out the rich who employ the rich. And when I hear of players that only the dedicated aficionado recognizes leaving one team for another for $4 million a year I find it hard to believe that I may be thinking of giving NHL teams money.

What has caused me concern is not philosophical but practical. For if BC but especially the federal government can offer huge inducements to the Movie industry to come to Canada - which is financing the rich with even richer employees just like hockey - how can we deny the Vancouver Canucks? If we can bail out a ginseng operation how can we turn down the Vancouver Canucks? And when IBM which makes enormous profits in Canada receives $33 million from Ottawa it really is hard to give hockey the cold shoulder.

The question does arise, of course, as to whether or not we should be doing any bailouts - and again I ask this not from the philosophical point of view but the practical. Philosophically, to me it’s a no brainer. It shouldn’t happen except in the most extraordinary of circumstances. But from the practical point of view, do we benefit in the long run from bribing industries to stay here?

I’m reminded of the old saying when the Saxons used to pay money to the Danes not to raid them, pillage them and rape all their women. The bribe was called the Danegeld and the saying was “once you pay him the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.” Likewise, once you pay a subsidy, how do you even quit when the subsidized company is going to simply threaten to pull up stakes unless you increase the ante.

In the IBM case, the Minister, John Manley, says that the feds have actually taken an interest in the subsidiary to be financed.. Perhaps that’s what should be done with hockey although I suspect that no NHL team would accept the government having an equity position - indeed, the league would probably object.

There is, of course, another way out for hockey. The taxes they face are the same all entrepreneurs face and perhaps it’s time that all governments started to give breaks to taxpayers all around.

We are indeed very much in a new world. Mr Manley alluded to that when he announced Ottawa’s participation in the IBM deal. Other governments, with much lower wage and other costs are attracting businesses to their countries and make no bones about it. It’s a very competitive world in which governments have lost the ability to control where industry does business and how they do it.

So there you have it. Reluctantly I turn around, creaking all the way, 180 degrees on the hockey issue.

Still, it sure as hell does rankle to see boneheads who throw millions of dollars at mediocre or often untried hockey players having the tax payer subsidize their self imposed impecuniosity. It just may be, though, that the precedent for doing so is so strong that we can do nothing else.