In a perfect world, Bombardier Inc. would design things its customers need or want, manufacture those things efficiently, deliver them on schedule and to cost, and be paid for this good work with alacrity, allowing it to continue being awesome. This should, in theory, not be so hard; it is, in fact, how business is supposed to work.
But Bombardier doesn’t operate that way. It never has. Which is why, as one season turns to another and the planet spins on its axis, the Montreal-based aerospace giant is pressing its substantial, state-subsidized girth to the trough once again, buttons popping, hands outstretched for another bowl of nosh. It is the people’s duty, we are told, to fork over $1-billion of our collectively borrowed money (because Ottawa is, of course, running at a $30-billion deficit) for the furtherance of the company’s CSeries passenger jet.
Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard, whose government has pledged $1 billion of Quebecers’ money but has not, just yet, handed over any of the proffered cash, can barely contain his impatience. What are the feds waiting for? Even Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, renowned for sharp-eyed thrift with every solitary taxpayer penny, is enthusiastic. State “investment” in the CSeries is a barreling streetcar that can’t be stopped.
Ah, yes – the streetcars. There’s that. The city of Toronto’s fleet of new, Bombardier-built red-and-whites is not landing quite on time. Indeed, they’re egregiously late and about to become more so. There were to be 54 new cars delivered by year-end, the Toronto Sun reports. There will now be 30. But not to worry, because the full order of 204 cars, worth $1.2 billion under the original 2009 contract, will be in the Toronto Transit Commission’s hands by 2019. Meantime, North America’s third-largest transit system can make do. There’s always duct tape.
Fine. What about Bombardier’s need? Who will speak for the workers, and who will fight for the children? Except that – oh dear – the company really doesn’t need the money all that much, if at all. Rob Dewar, vice-president in charge of the CSeries project, told the Financial Post’s Kristine Owram last month Ottawa’s contribution would merely be “an extra endorsement for the program … That’s really just an extra bonus that would be helpful but is clearly not required.”
Never mind what you would give to have been a fly on the wall during the first chat between Dewar and his boss after that pearl was let drop. We should take the man at his word. The CSeries is shaping up nicely. Indeed Reuters anticipates a massive order from Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, within days. Bloomberg reports Bombardier is rushing to get in on the emerging Iranian bonanza. Now that theocratic dictatorship and a standing threat to destroy Israel are no longer cause for alarm, perhaps we can affix “made in Canada” stickers to Tehran’s new fleet of tourist airliners. It seems only fair, since we’re building armoured troop carriers for the Saudis.
But bosh to foreign sales; in February, as has been widely reported, Air Canada and Bombardier inked a letter of intent worth close to $5 billion for the purchase and sale of 45 CSeries jets, with an option to buy 30 more. So you see, there are real, honest-to-God customers lining up for Bombardier’s products. They have considerable funds. There must be some other, grander reason, logic suggests, for us to part with our borrowed billion. And indeed there is: national unity.
Federal devotion to Bombardier has long been a source of national cohesion, as we know. The CF-18 maintenance contract of 1986, for example, which went to Bombardier’s Canadair unit rather than Bristol Aerospace of Winnipeg, helped spark a Prairie revolt. Up rose the Reform Party, which torpedoed the old Progressive Conservative party, which caused a subsequent movement to Unite The Right, which ultimately brought the West to Ottawa, triumphant. See? Cohesion.
Now the same inexorable, unifying forces are at work as Quebec’s mayors and government fight to ease the path of TransCanada’s proposed Energy East pipeline, a project widely deemed critical to the future prosperity of Alberta and Canada, expected to receive not even a single billion-dollar government infusion, let alone two, and yield 91, 849 one-year-equivalent full time jobs in six provinces, according to Deloitte.
Quebec’s various leaders are fighting, that is to say, their deep-seated compulsion to object, object, object, until Ottawa coughs up the lolly. It’s been a long and arduous internal struggle; they’ve lost more often than they’ve won, which is a major reason Energy East, once a slam dunk, is now on life support. But yes, by all means, let’s prop up Bombardier, yet again, whether it needs it or not. It’s only $1 billion. And it’s not even our money.