 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Information in: Español - Français - Deutsch - Português - Russian - Japanese - Svenska - Italiano - Suomi
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
Financial Sinkhole Editorial - Canadian business supposedly has no better friend than Export Development Canada, a federally funded agency that provides billions of dollars in loans and lines of credit to foreign companies that want to buy Canadian products. But helping foreign buyers does not help Canadian taxpayers. Instead, it is costing them billions. Half of EDC's $21-billion portfolio is loaned to customers of Bombardier and Nortel, high-profile companies operating in the aerospace and information technology sectors that have taken a terrible beating in the current recession. It has now emerged that in March, 2001, when he was still EDC chairman, Patrick Lavelle warned Ottawa that $10-billion of exposure to Bombardier and Nortel customers was at risk. Around the world, clients of Bombardier and Nortel face grim economic forecasts, and some will be unable to pay what they owe. According to Probe International, a watchdog group, Canadian taxpayers bailed out $800-million worth of dud EDC loans between 1990 and 2000. The agency's latest extravagance with Canadians' money may prove much more costly. Two years ago, Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's Minister for International Trade, crowed that the EDC was "a Canadian success story." It is, rather, just another Canadian financial sinkhole. Ottawa loves it because it provides the political class with oodles of tax revenue to lavish on favoured corporations -- some are already subsidized in other ways -- by socializing the risk of sales to buyers who may or may not be able to pay. EDC is founded on a theory that is as bankrupt as the institution it serves -- that the state is adept at picking out promising economic opportunities missed by capital markets. Export Development Canada has hung like an albatross around the neck of the Canadian taxpayer for far too long. It must stop making new loans, wind down its operations and then shutter itself for good.
More information can be found at:
|
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
Home | What are ECAs? | The Problems | Goals | Take Action! | Press Room | About Us For Questions or Comments, email info_at_eca-watch.org
|
||||||||||||||
