Industry Minister Brian Tobin won the nickname Captain Canada when he took on foreign fishing fleets off the East Coast, but the Liberal leadership hopeful is likely to find that providing corporate welfare to a profitable Montreal company has less populist appeal.
Yesterday, the recently appointed Industry Minister announced that the Liberal government would provide direct financing -- loans worth up to $1.7-billion -- to support Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.'s potential sale of regional jets to U.S.-based Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp.
As he did in the 1995 fish wars, Mr. Tobin has flouted diplomatic niceties to launch a direct action against a foreign government which is seen as harming Canada's economic interests.
Mr. Tobin yesterday defended the federal action, saying Ottawa had to act to protect jobs across the country.
He said Bombardier was losing sales -- and potentially jobs -- to Brazilian competitor Embraer SA as a result of continued subsidies by Brazil which had been judged to be in contravention of international rules by the World Trade Organization.
The Industry Minister brushed aside suggestions that Canada was itself resorting to illegal subsidies, saying the government was not prepared to lose markets and jobs to a street-fighting competitor.
In the fish fight, Mr. Tobin used his vaunted communications skills to convince Canadians that the seizure in international waters of the Spanish fishing trawler Estai for alleged illegal fishing was necessary to protect the livelihoods of Atlantic fishermen.
The turbot wars helped make Mr. Tobin a national figure and solidified his position as the obvious replacement for then-Newfoundland premier Clyde Wells when Mr. Wells retired in late 1995.
After nearly five years as premier, Mr. Tobin returned to federal politics prior to last fall's election. Even before he was elected, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien appointed him as Industry Minister.
Mr. Tobin is a leading contender to succeed Mr. Chrétien when he retires and is expected to use the Industry job to gain both economic experience to round out his résumé and contacts with deep-pocketed business leaders who might fund a leadership bid.
But the controversial decision to use taxpayers' money to help Bombardier will only reinforce Mr. Tobin's image as a pork-barrelling politician, a reputation the Minister is eager to shed.
"This has the stamp of Tobin all over it," Canadian Alliance industry critic Charlie Penson said yesterday. "It looks like they are really revving it up; he's going to try to pick winners."
Few corporations in Canada have better ties to the Liberal government than Bombardier, or a greater record of benefiting from government largesse.
Bombardier chairman and chief executive officer Laurent Beaudoin has close ties to Mr. Chrétien and was a prominent spokesman for the federalist side in the last Quebec sovereignty referendum.
Bombardier, which earned $719-million in 1999-2000, has long benefited from federal grants and loans to the aerospace industry, which tends to be centred in Montreal.
In fact, the federal government had to overhaul one of those programs -- Technology Partnership Canada -- after the WTO ruled it contravened the trade agreement.
Criticism was fast and widespread.
Bob Friesen, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, wondered why there was money to help a hugely profitable aerospace company match foreign subsidies, but none on offer to help Canadian farmers compete with their heavily subsidized American and European counterparts.
"One industry shouldn't be more important than another," he said. "Our farmers are clearly competing against government subsidies in other countries. . . ."
- Report on Business Company Snapshot is available for:
- BOMBARDIER INC.