Bombardier, Corporate Bum

Bombardier is in trouble — again. But after years of suckling on the public teat, it looks like the tide may be turning when it comes to political willingness to support the company with public money.

Despite billions of dollars in government support over the years, the Canadian company currently finds itself $9 billion in debt and the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the aerospace giant is in talks to sell its business jet unit to U.S.-based Textron Inc.

Long seen as a company that’s too big to fail, in the past we would have seen federal and provincial governments lining up to support Bombardier. Indeed, the last time the company was in trouble, in 2016, the government of Quebec sunk $1.3 billion into its C Series jet program, gaining a 49.5 per cent stake in the project. The federal government later pledged $372.5 million in federal loans to its aerospace division.

A couple years later, in 2018, Bombardier sold a controlling stake in its C Series jet program to Airbus for $1 and laid off 2,500 workers in Quebec (the provincial government still has a 16.4 per cent stake in Airbus’ A220 program). Bombardier is now thinking of getting out of the partnership entirely.

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