Correct me if I鈥檓 wrong, but wasn鈥檛 one of the main planks in Trudeau鈥檚 campaign during the 2015 federal election to support the middle class and introduce a system of taxation that would help the middle class?
Were many, least in part, not wooed by his plan to raise taxes for the wealthiest and ease them for the middle class?
I鈥檓 really trying to wrap my head around the logic of the same Liberal government that swept the 2015 federal election with those promises, allowing for so many workers that don鈥檛 have cushy executive positions to be so unequivocally screwed over.
I鈥檓 trying to parse the thought that went into what the federal government just did with $372.5 million.
Once again, our federal government has decided to allot a whopping sum of money to the perennially financially needy aerospace and transportation company, Bombardier Inc. They make planes, and stuff, so I guess that鈥檚 cool, but I don鈥檛 think a lot of that $372.5 million will be contributing to that kind of productivity.
When asked about throwing that money Bombardier鈥檚 way, Trudeau rationalized the decision, stating it would go toward the development of some fancy new CSeries and Global 7000 jets. He added in some platitudes about how it would be a great investment, on account of it creating some jobs. That sounds like a great idea, until that ugly elephant in the room of context is considered.
Bombardier, while demanding money from the federal government, was on the warpath, implementing over 14,000 job-cuts worldwide. This has been going on over the past few years, and it was one of the many rationales by which Bombardier plied the federal pocketbook: 鈥淲e鈥檙e losing jobs! Help!鈥�
The real problem I see here is that not only was Bombardier laying off scads of workers while it was asking the federal government for money. In 2016, while these layoffs were going on, Bombardier awarded its CEO, Pierre Beaudoin, and its top five executives drastic multimillion dollar pay bumps and bonuses, that made their total compensation jump to around $32 million, up from $21 million in 2015.
That鈥檚 some strange logic there, too. Strange enough that in Montreal, over 200 people took to the streets to protest, chanting 鈥淪hame to Bombardier鈥� in front of the company鈥檚 office.聽
Fortunately, there is a silver lining to this fiscal oversight, and blatant example of the uglier, more avaricious side of capitalism. Bombardier, in response the protests, deferred 50 per cent of the total 2016 compensation for the six executives until 2020. Those head honchos are also expected to honour a promise to have the company meet a number of performance goals, or they won鈥檛 be paid the tremendous amount of money entailed in their total 2016 compensation.
Beaudoin, probably feeling a little guilty, asked to have his compensation cut back to the levels it was at before the tremendous bump applied to it in 2016. Probably about the only honourable thing done in response to public outcry. And he was getting the most money out of the lot of them, anyway, so that cheapens his gesture.
It鈥檚 troubling that it took direct, unequivocal public outrage to rectify this issue. Would we have seen these dramatic concessions to common sense and financial responsibility from Bombardier, had this not been a trigger of protests and concentrated, loud indignation? Probably not.
And what is going on in Trudeau鈥檚 head that he鈥檚 willing to see his government throw the kind of money it did at Bombardier, while that kind of thing was going on? Maybe I鈥檓 not getting the whole picture there, but I don鈥檛 see how their subsidy is going to help middle class people 鈥� not even the middle class workers Bombardier continues to lay off by the truckload, while its top executives lick their chops for that big fat 2016 pay bump that now has an asterisk and some fine print beside it.
If Bombardier is willing to be so dishonest with how it spends its own money, I鈥檓 not comfortable that a company like that is getting that much of public money. In fact, I鈥檓 not comfortable that they are getting any public money.
