Senator Porkier

I give up.

The delivery of Canada's first military cargo aircraft faces delays while Boeing is embroiled in a backroom battle with Public Works Minister Michael Fortier over Quebec's share of economic benefits flowing from the $3.4-billion purchase. The negotiations, which were scheduled to close last month, are running into overtime and jeopardizing the plan to deliver the first of four C-17 aircraft to the Canadian Forces in June. To obtain the contract, U.S.-based Boeing Co. has to pledge to buy supplies and services worth the exact value of the purchase in Canada. This package of regional benefits can be spent directly to build or maintain the Boeing C-17s, or any other current and future Boeing aircraft. With billions at stake, Boeing is facing political pressure to invest heavily in Quebec, where 55 per cent to 60 per cent of Canada's aerospace industry is located. But the company plans to spend only 30 per cent of the economic benefits in the politically sensitive province, while directing the rest to other provinces, industry and government sources said... A number of Quebec businesses and politicians -- including Mr. Fortier -- are fighting to boost the province's share of the regional benefits. He hasn't publicly set out a target for Quebec's share of these economic benefits, but he is staunchly defending the industry that is mainly located in the Montreal area. Mr. Fortier, an unelected senator, will be running in Vaudreuil-Soulanges, just west of Montreal, in the next election. As Public Works Minister, he has the final responsibility for signing the contract.

In the twenty-odd years since the CF-18 debacle, Conservatives have apparently learned nothing: about economics, about political morality, about playing fire with regional jealousies. That a Conservative government would still be inflating the cost of military procurement contracts by insisting on domestic "industrial benefits" offsets is bad enough: it's just pure protectionism. (We tax ourselves to overpay foreign suppliers for military aircraft. Then we use the proceeds to make passenger aircraft here, and tax ourselves again to subsidize their sale overseas. That's some investment strategy: buy high, sell low.) But that Fortier would be sticking his finger in to steer more of the pelf towards his home province is just unforgivable. I say again: Have these people learned nothing?