MP Reg Alcock (Winnipeg South) is on the money when he calls for the end of Western Economic Diversification (WED). Ottawa's premier granting agency for western Canada has had its day and the time has come to put the tired old dog down.

But Alcock is off his rocker to say the agency's $284 million budget should be rolled into Industry Canada, the mother of all corporate welfare providers.

Industry Canada is headed by none other than Brian (Captain Subsidy) Tobin. No stranger to the public trough, Tobin's latest tax and spend escapades would give life to a $4.5 billion national broadband Internet network. The staggering price tag of a broadband technology that may become obsolete by the end of the decade highlights why the granting agencies of "legacy-seeking" politicians should be gutted.

Subsidy programs like Industry Canada and WED are throwbacks to 19th century industrial development policies that have no relevance to the market forces guiding the 21st century. These archaic attempts at economic development are costly, ineffective and unknown to most businesses.

A recent Ipsos-Reid survey found that the agency that frittered away over $2 billion in handouts to western-based companies is virtually unknown to the business community in spite of its $600,000 per year ad budget. Only ten percent of small business owners in the west could identify WED and only one in seven said to have had any contact with the agency.

If the fish aren't biting cut bait. By the looks of it, hardly any business owners can be bothered to apply for free taxpayer cash. They're likely too busy making money to trouble themselves with endless application forms and meddling politicians surfacing for the photo-ops at business openings.

If you're not convinced WED should be dismantled, ask yourself these mind-bending questions. Is $400,000 dropped on Manitoba yacht clubs and golf and country clubs in non-repayable grants since 1994 a reasonable place to park your taxes? Or, on the scale of spending priorities, does $96 million in subsidies invested in the Who's Who of Canada's corporate elite since 1987 seem fair?

In an ideal world, you'd expect some return for your taxes. Not in this case. WED's slack repayment schedule has made dead-beat debtors out of CEOs. Of the $132 million loaned out to a variety of business ventures, only 3.4% was returned.

The double standard is glaring. Stiff the taxman and government agents will swoop down on you like a scene from the Sopranos. But renege on your country-club welfare loan from WED and it's written-off as the bureaucratic equivalent to collateral damage.

Not unlike the skullduggery behind the HRDC scandal, WED is a train wreck waiting to happen. Ottawa's top brass would be wise to fold their tents now before the same excavations that dug up the HRDC bodies throws the lid off the sewage of failed WED grants as well.

The corporate welfare industry is a minefield that regularly blows millions of tax dollars into dust and has the potential to explode political careers as well. Ask HRDC head Jane Stewart once she recovers from her own Waterloo.

If former Prime Minister Trudeau was correct to speak out against the government's place in the bedrooms of the nation, his Liberal successors should be reminded that Ottawa has no business in Canada's boardrooms either.