Think Ottawa might be smart enough not to hand out forestry subsidies while embroiled in the softwood lumber dispute with the Americans- a dispute over alleged subsidies Think again. The federal government handed out over $85 million in grants and "repayable" loans to Quebec forest companies over the past year, with one announcement as recent as February. That means in addition to U.S. tariffs, BC forest companies face another problem: taxpayer subsidized companies in another province.

Facts are facts, so no one should mistake this for an anti-Quebec rant. Moreover, corporate welfare is an economic blunder. It only shifts jobs from one firm to another or from one sector to another and is dumb economic policy regardless of the location. Here, compiled from the Quebec-focused federal Crown corporation, Canada Economic Development, is a list of some of the federal tax money that's been doled out as of late:

Non-repayable grants from Canada Economic Development (CED) to Quebec-based forest companies:

February 4, 2002: $192,800 to Industries MEC Bois Inc. for the acquisition of production facilities for a new value-added wood processing plant in Les Mechins.

February 23, 2001: $1,365,000 to Pan-O-Starr Inc. to establish a mill to produce cedar shingles.

February 5, 2001: $97,000 to G.A.B. Inc to establish a wood planing mill.

February 5, 2001: $195,000 to Les Cedres Chics-Chocs Inc. to establish a mill to produce white cedar shingles.

Total CED grants over the past year: $1,849,800

"Repayable" contributions (which may or may not have to be re-paid depending on terms)

October 14, 2001: $933,250 to Produits Forestiers Lamco Inc. for the establishment of a wood lamination and jointing facility, announced October 14, 2001.

August 2, 2001: $80,000,000 to Papiers Gaspesia Inc. for set-up of a paper mill in Chandler Quebec.

June 26, 2001: $2,000,000 to Planchers Jonquiere for the establishment of a wood processing plant.

Total CED "repayable" contributions announced over the past year: $82,933,250

In comparison, the Crown Corporation in western Canada responsible for disbursing pork - sorry, "economic assistance" - Western Economic Diversification (WED) appears to have doled out zip for BC forestry companies in the last year. Looking back, between 1995 and 2000, WED gave out $341,500 to smallish forestry-related companies. (The feds doled out forestry research money to both BC and Quebec through Industry Canada but that's another story.)

Don't mistake this as a call for more federal subsidies to British Columbia. The last thing B.C. needs is to be turned into a permanent have-not region like Quebec or Atlantic Canada. In fact, the response British Columbians should have to the prospect of any government offering subsidies is the same one that kids should have when shady characters offer them suspicious substances: run, yell, attract attention, and point fingers at the pusher until the cops arrest him. The long-term consequence of corporate welfare is dependency and British Columbians don't need the fix.

If one digs deep enough in the corporate welfare trough, one finds more federal forestry pork in the late 1980s and early 1990s, to companies in B.C., Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia. But most of that was when Brian Mulroney was in charge; it's not the reason for the current softwood lumber fight. Nor for that matter is the current politically motivated, taxpayer-funded pork, which flows mainly to Quebec. But given the softwood dispute, forestry subsidies to any other province constitute a federal slap in the face to those being laid off in B.C. mills. No subsidies at all would be preferable.