Bloomberg reports that OMERs' Nobrega will continue to exploit Harper's pension fund tax arb in 2008

How can something called the Tax Fairness Plan be the source of a tax arbitrage, whereby one investor group is not taxed (pension funds) and the other is (RRSPs), such that the one can (and will) exploit the other?

That's called an arbitrage. It's also called patently unfair. Welcome to Harper land.

Furthermore, how does that arrangement stem alleged tax leakage? If pension funds buy all the trusts, will that stop alleged tax leakage? Ditto for foreign private equity?

Surely that concept is not too difficult for Canada’s press corps to grasp? (hint: the answer is no, it won’t stem alleged tax leakage, however in the case of foreign private equity buyers it will create tax leakage where none previously existed).

Hey, maybe they aren’t the press corps after, all. More like corp’s press

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) --

“We did look at BCE, but we told Teachers' that we have so many other projects in line,'' Nobrega said today in a telephone interview from Toronto. ``Each pension fund tends to have a specialty, and it's just not on our wheel box.''

Toronto-based Omers is Canada's sixth-biggest pension fund manager. It has an investment staff of about 200 people, including about 75 who oversee private-equity investments, Nobrega said. The fund has stayed away from telecommunications because of expected returns in the industry, he said.

``It's not an industry that we are extremely keen on,'' Nobrega said. ``We find that it is a very competitive industry.''

Instead, Nobrega said Omers is looking at acquiring more Canadian income trusts before Canada's government starts taxing their earnings in 2011. Omers last year paid about C$240 million to buy Golf Town Income Fund, Canada's biggest golf-equipment retailer. Its portfolio of private-equity assets, which includes Golf Town, is now valued at C$3.8 billion.

``As 2011 approaches, there are going to be a lot more of those investment opportunities on the income trust side,'' Nobrega said.