The current exec pay hooha is a timely reminder about the real scandal here: the willingness of politicians to hand over billions of dollars in subsidies to a few favoured companies. What is Bombardier really selling? Itself as a recipient for government funds. As for planes, “it is selling the making of planes, or more particularly conspicuous government support for the making of planes, or perhaps just the idea of making planes,” writes Andrew Coyne, tongue firmly in cheek, for the National Post.

I see the lib-left jackal pack in the media and opposition have decided to make a big “to-do” out of Bombardier paying its managers what they’re worth. Columnists have fulminated, questions have been asked in Parliament, demonstrators have filled the streets over the company’s decision to set aside a small portion of the nearly $3.7 billion it has recently received in various forms of government assistance as a reward for the current occupants of its executive suite. And sure, on the surface, at first blush, it’s easy to say that, at a time when the company is laying off thousands of workers, raising the compensation for senior executives by an average of 50 per cent looks a little — what’s the word — unselfish? Giving? Generous to a fault?

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