Living on Corporate Welfare

When an aircraft manufacturer crashes, the rubble is the stuff of agony. John Diefenbaker’s destruction of the Avro Arrow is a legend of what might have been and more evidence, if it were needed, that eastern money has never given the west a chance. Today, the tables are turned, for in the crash of the stock market value of airplane and train maker Bombardier Inc. are signs that the Montreal-based industrial giant could fail and that the rest of the country might not be willing to maintain the bailouts that have kept it afloat.

In Silent Partners: Taxpayers and the Bankrolling of Bombardier, financial writer Peter Hadekel points to the lifeblood of the company— government subsidies—and asks whether, without the gusher of public cash that built and sustains it, the business is viable. It is a convoluted tale, but Hadekel unravels the machinations of Ottawa mandarins, Bombardier strategists, competing Brazilian plane makers and foreign governments that have...