If a P.E.I. politician shows up to a ribbon cutting, check your wallet on the way out.

That was the lesson last week when Premier Rob Lantz stood beside the federal industry minister at Slemon Park to announce $110 million in taxpayer subsidies for a single private company. The provincial government put up $55 million. Ottawa added another $55.7 million.

The beneficiary: MDS Coating Technologies, an aerospace facility.

This kind of cheque doesn’t come cheap. And it comes at a time when the province can’t afford it.

The Lantz government just tabled a budget plan to borrow $410 million this year. The government is increasing the provincial debt by nearly 20 per cent in a single year.

Yet on top of all that, the government is writing nine-figure cheques to one private company.

And this isn’t MDS’s first taxpayer cheque.

The province handed the company a $7-million loan in 2025. Ottawa and the province chipped in a joint $10 million in 2023. Five years, four cheques, one company.

Politicians want Islanders to focus on the 120 new jobs the company says it will create. That works out to taxpayers paying more than $900,000 per job. Some of those jobs might materialize. Some may not. Either way, the bill goes to Islanders.

This is the same playbook P.E.I. has been running for years, with the same results.

Biovectra received $10 million in taxpayer subsidies in 2021. Today its cutting jobs and laying off Islanders.

That’s what corporate welfare actually delivers. Big announcements at the front end and pink slips at the back end. Taxpayers carry the risk while politicians collect the photo op.

And it isn’t a one-off.

Island taxpayers are on the hook for more than $244 million every year in business subsidies. That is more than the province collects in corporate income tax. Islanders are paying out more to subsidize companies than they are getting back from corporate taxes.

Defenders of this approach say P.E.I. needs to compete for investment. They’re half right.

Real competition for investment means lowering taxes, cutting red tape and building a business environment that works for every employer on the Island. It doesn’t mean cherry-picking which companies get a taxpayer cheque and which ones are left to figure it out on their own.

P.E.I. has the highest general corporate tax rate in Canada at 15 per cent. The national average is 12.5 per cent. Alberta’s rate is just eight per cent.

Why would any growing company pick P.E.I. over Alberta unless it was first in line for a government cheque?

That’s the answer the current model gives. The government needs to lower the cost of doing business for everyone instead, not just the ones with the right political connections.

Islanders can’t keep doing this.

The province is running up $1.3 billion in new debt over the next three years. Future generations of Islanders will be paying off today’s spending decisions for decades.

Every dollar handed to a politically favoured company is a dollar that can’t go to tax relief, paying down debt, or strengthening front-line services.

The Lantz government should end corporate welfare and redirect those dollars to cutting the general corporate tax rate. The $244 million in subsidies could be used to cut corporate tax rates by 40 per cent while leaving the province with $172 million in total savings.

That means every business on the Island saves money and taxpayers aren’t being forced to pick up the bill for corporate welfare.

Islanders deserve better than another nine-figure cheque to a politically favoured company at a time when the province is borrowing record amounts.

If the Lantz government really believes the Island needs a more competitive economy, the answer is the same for every business: lower taxes, less waste and a level playing field. Not another corporate welfare cheque.