'Tis the season for giving, but for Canadian taxpayers it threatens to be the story of Christmas past, present and future in the form of more public subsidies paid to aerospace manufacturer Bombardier. Despite overwhelming evidence that corporate welfare is little more than a sinkhole for tax dollars, federal and provincial governments are set to provide the company with gifts, in the form of subsidies and conditionally repayable loan guarantees.

At a time when the junk-company's CEO has been dismissed and its stock is plummeting, the view in Ottawa is all is well with the ailing company and the government's aerospace policy. Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin has said he remains committed to supporting the company with more handouts. Meanwhile, Conservative Opposition leader Stephen Harper has gone underground on this issue. For all intents and purpose, the government and the government-in-waiting are cozy bed fellows.

It is time to take a hard look at how much the taxpayer has paid out to Bombardier over the past two decades. Since 1982, Bombardier and its subsidiaries have received $36-million in grants and $736-million in repayable contributions - for a grand total of $772-million. These amounts do not include billions of dollars in financing provided through Export Development Canada. Federal law does not permit citizens to know the extent of Ottawa's support of Big Business through this Crown corporation; but according to the EDC, as of Dec. 31, 2003, the company had $6.5-billion in outstanding loans to the aerospace industry and provided "significant support for Bombardier."

When questions are raised why Ottawa should continue to risk tax dollars when it is investors who reap the benefits - in the form of dividends or rising stock prices - successive industry ministers have insisted Bombardier's repayment record is very good. Industry Minister David Emerson even declared this week that the taxpayers of Canada "haven't lost any money on Bombardier." Yet no one has ever produced the repayment numbers. Ottawa should release them and let the numbers speak for themselves.

But rather than account for past "loan" contributions, the federal government is ready to hand over another half-billion dollars to Bombardier for its new regional jet program. Bombardier is counting on governments to pay one-third of the jet's $2-billion price tag. Who knows if it will turn a profit With tax dollars at risk, does it matter

And if all this was not bad enough, Minister Emerson is now advocating a command-and-control policy for the aerospace business. He wants the company to use domestic suppliers that are spread out across the country if the company builds its new 110- to 135-seat regional jet. Is Bombardier a publicly traded company or a Crown corporation

In practice it is a little of both. In Silent Partners: Taxpayers and the Bankrolling of Bombardier, author Peter Hadekel chronicles Bombardier's pattern of purchasing government companies at bargain prices, often with government assistance, and later coming back to Ottawa for support to survive. It is an interesting corporate strategy for what is, we are told, a risk-taking enterprise. And under Ottawa's aerospace policy the future is predictable: Bombardier will have everything to gain and little to lose with taxpayers holding the bag.

With all the government aid and promises of even more to come a tongue-in-cheek response would be to nationalize the company. Such a policy would give the government the control - fiscal and managerial - over Bombardier it apparently seeks. A more responsible policy is to let the company - and its investors -solve its challenges so it sinks or swims on the strength of its products and markets, not on its connections to government insiders.

Tasha Kheiriddin, Ontario Director & John Williamson, Federal Director