Okay, maybe paying exorbitant bonuses to management after taking $1.3B in gov’t handouts wasn’t the best of public relations exercises.
In an email from Michael Chong today:*
There are times for government to intervene to protect sectors of our economy, such as when the government rescued our auto manufacturing industry in 2009.
Aerospace technology is another high-tech, R&D intensive sector important to Canada’s national economy.
Uh huh. Tell that to Viking Air of Victoria and Calgary. They’re the ones who rescued the de Haviland Canada type certificates for the DHC-1 to DHC-7 from Bombardier, who got it them from Boeing, who got them from the Gov’t of Canada. They’re actually producing new variants of the venerable DHC-6 (Twin Otter) and an upgrade program for the DHC-2 (Beaver).
Like all gov’t “investment” to “protect sectors of our economy” it is nothing but crony capitalism and vote buying.
It should be a provincial bale out, taken out of their $billions they get in federal transfer payments.
Companies that constantly depend on government favourtism — whether it be handouts or contract preferences — never learn to take full responsibility for their fate. They are like children whose parents never let them walk on their own lest they fall.
Trying to think of an example in Canada where a bailout has worked – that the recipient(s) became world beaters.
Looks like Adscam 2 to me. Are those getting bonuses diners to the Liberal Party? Will the media bother checking?
It is difficult to put Chong’s email in any context because I don’t know whom it was sent to, or, if that is the entire email.
However, Harper bailed out the GMC and Chrysler losers, and I imagine little Mikey was okay with that. And THAT is what makes 99 percent of large C Conservatives no different from the Liberals and the rest of the trash.
It is just another in a long list of examples of those with no political influence (us) getting extorted to enrich the bastards that have it.
I’ve been thinking about applying for a grant to build solar-powered guillotines. If I could get things rolling, I think it would do one hell of a lot more than taxpayer cash to GM, Chrysler, and Bombardier to “protect sectors of our economy”.
nobody gets a raise in a company that has received a billion dollars from McDonalds tax payers. Not even the union. Produce a profit you get bonus, not before. the company should have gone bankrupt years ago.
Context:
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The A.V.Roe company was unavailable for comment.
lance,,,,it’s not “crony capitalism”,,,,it’s CRONYISM!
Stop entwining “CAPITALISM” in something that is not capitalism.
It’s plain and simple, CRONYISM!
and yes, I’m am yelling.
“Donate now to stop taxpayer funded executive bonuses. ”
Thanks Lance. What it boils down to is that little Mikey isn’t against pissing way tax-dollars on multi-billionaires or corporate welfare bums, he just wishes that the execs wouldn’t line their pockets so quickly and blatantly.
Bankruptcy is not a bad thing. There may be parts of Bombardier that look attractive to someone more competent. Bailout number 83 and 84 by Quebec and the Feds respectively will not be the last reward for incompetence. This represents an ongoing legacy of stupid. Mad Max wouldn’t do it!
Why would anyone take anything that Michael Chong says seriously? After all, he supported M 103 from the beginning. Talk about elites being out of touch.
How is running deficits and taking pay raises in Government any different? When taxpayers take government goodies when governments are in deficit, how is it different?
On the plus side, members of management can now better afford supporting political parties they feel are deserving.
“When taxpayers take government goodies when governments are in deficit, how is it different?”
I have paid a disproportionate amount of tax to the government for 50 years. So I will take advantage of every tax break available to me. I will accept any carbon tax rebate, OAS, CPP, and any other thing the government makes available.
If you want to donate to the government to help them get out of debt, have at it. Just don’t obligate me to follow your stupidity.
This is no different than paying twice what we should for cheese and other dairy products. Just another way to transfer wealth to the east. On the corporate welfare, it should be the case that all levels of government should not be allowed to lend or gift money to anyone if the government is in deficit.
Adscammers keeping it in the “family”… The Trudeau Foundation is most likely the new way for Libranos to steal and launder money… will the media ask questions? Will the Media care? Nope.
Without putting too fine a point on the Harper bailout of the auto industry I might suggest that Harper was in a very difficult position with Obama. He (Obama)was going to bail out the auto sector no matter what. Failure to follow suit would have cost jobs in Canada as zero would have pounced on the opportunity to bring the jobs back to the US. A difficult sport for Harper politically.
” What it boils down to is that little Mikey isn’t against pissing way tax-dollars on multi-billionaires or corporate welfare bums, he just wishes that the execs wouldn’t line their pockets so quickly and blatantly.”
You nailed it Jamie.
Further, as TimR says, Chong supported M103. Chong is a liberal disguised as a conservative.
Carl, just to fine tune your “capitalism” point. The word “capitalist” is a leftist construct, probably coined by Lenin. Variations of “free enterprise” believer would probably be more appropriate. Open to someone more knowledgeable to correct me. You nailed it with cronyism though.
Does Chong realize he’s running for the CONSERVATIVE leadership? I think he meant to enter the dipper contest.
And the Lib-ndp-bloq trifecta screeching or else.
Those automaker jobs will dwindle with more robotics….
Lance, to add to your list of Viking type certificates, they recently bought the amphibious division of Bombardier (formerly Canadair…no comment). They are now the go to shop for the CL-415 water bomber and older variants. Bombardier bet the farm on the C-series, sell-offs and bailouts is the fallout. There is little mention of the control the Bombardiers maintain through their Class A voting shares. I think the public disgust with them would grow if that was public knowledge. A bit of sunshine helps people connect the dots.
Otter driver
I was an employee at viking air calgary for 6 years loved it there the company was a good company to work for their sales team was hard working and frugal they took their flagship twin otter 400 series to the largest air show in Europe and impressed ….however feedback was all thumbs down by lefty socialist governments as the Italians are trying to sell their junk aircraft ….if there is one thing Canada did right it was the de havilland line of aircraft tough as friken nails . And I mean tough tough . Utilitarian in every way ….won’t get you there fast but it will get you there for sure. Now having said that the q-400 is the “modern “uber progressive idea of prop aircraft it is a bear to work on , and has a whole bunch of garbage on it like sound cancelling ect ect just added weight and they ran everything under the floor just stupid . All of the other stuff is great the dash 7 twin single otters the beaver chipmunk all of it great aircraft for Canadian toughness.
Now I work for bombardier as a private contractor ….lol . I just look at it as me getting my tax dollars back .
Paul, my time on piston otters and twin otters represents over half my career. You claim they’re tough as nails, I think they’re tougher. Beautiful aircraft to operate, but they could have put a better heater in the otter.
Lol. Fair enough. Most of my career is de havilland products.
The twin otter is extremely well built not to bad to work on , and has 4or 5 different types of gear making it probably one of the most versatile aircraft on the earth . Build for use in Canada’s tough terrain made it easily adaptable to many different climates all over the world hence in 2000 when Viking air did a world wide survey of their customers (Oem parts manufacturing for the twin otter ) all came back with the same response
BUILD IT!!
So they were asked to put their money were their mouth was and they did …50 twin otters were sold at 7-8 million a piece that set the ball in motion and the rest is as they say history.
Right here:
“Bombardier and Canada’s Corporate Welfare Trap”
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-milke/bombardier-corporate-welfare-trap_b_4705751.html is all you need to know about the scam that Bombardier is running.
Where you find and won’t find about the repayment of big government loans to that company.
Like:
Publicly, Bombardier claims it has repaid $275 million on two government loans originally worth $187 million. That ignores the dozens of other disbursements and much larger amounts loaned to the company.
Some other scraps of information are available though. In 2008, Industry Canada’s department performance report noted a $108.4 million loan guarantee write-off. The department did not specify which company benefitted when taxpayers covered the loan, but media reports noted it was for government guarantees connected to Bombardier’s turboprop aircraft.
It seems obvious the tin bending for aircraft part of this transport equipment business must eventually be sold off to
some ambitious government backed enterprise in Asia to take it to the next level. Let us pray these highly paid execs
have the brainpower to achieve that at somewhat more than fire sale prices and thus recoup some of our bailout gifting.
Hey Paul, did you ever hear the rumor that de Haviland was going to set up a subsidiary in South America? It was to be called, “Bolivia de Haviland”.
Nope. There was talks of sending Viking employees to Russia and India to help set up assembly shops because they have massive tariffs on importing whole aircraft so they were going to build facilities in both places send the aircraft in pieces and assemble it there but Crimea happened and Harper blocked all of that to Russia he asleep seized Iranian twin otters as well as part of sanctions with the USA .