[FootPrints]

Bombardier building "Roof of the World" railway in China-challenged Tibet<br /> by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com<br /> Monday, May 2, 2005 <br /> <br /> Why is Bombardier, the world’s third largest plane producer building a railway to the top of the world in China-challenged Tibet?<br /> <br /> A leader of the Canadian aerospace industry, Bombardier is helping China to build a railway on the "roof of the world".<br /> <br /> The nearly 1,200-kilometre rail line will be the first to connect China to Tibet’s capital city and is opposed by Tibetans both inside and outside Tibet.<br /> <br /> Bombardier, already China’s largest feeder plane provider, seems to be taking a page from the book of the Canadian Liberal government, that has propped it up financially, in opening the floodgates to Canadian-Chinese business ventures. <br /> <br /> Andre Desmarais, the son of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin’s former boss, Paul Desmarais at the Montreal-based Power Corporation, if honorary chairman of the Canada-China Business Council. In fact, Power Corp. Vice President Peter Kruyt has been council chairman since 2002.<br /> <br /> Martin’s first address as new Canadian Prime Minister was made at the council’s gala dinner, held at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre on Dec. 6, 2004. <br /> <br /> Bombardier, which has taken at least $1.5 billion in grants, loans, and/or loan guarantees from the Canadian federal government in the last couple of decades, is one of the five western corporations to directly partner with the Communist Chinese government in the construction of the railway.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.torontofreepress.com/2005/cover050205a.htm">Full Story</a>

[4Canada]

The Canadian people should have some say in what Bombardier does in our name if they are going to keep accepting subsidies from us. Cut them off. What do we send ambassadors out into the world for when our reputation, like the USAs is really formed by our corporate face. Not good for Canada or Canadians travelling abroad.

[FootPrints]

Bombardier's payout to Tellier and stake in China-Tibet railway come under fire ALLAN SWIFT <br /> Tue Jun 7, 5:58 PM ET<br /> <br /> MONTREAL (CP) - A shareholders rights group may sue the board of Bombardier Inc. over the golden parachute handed former chief executive Paul Tellier when he bailed out last December. <br /> <br /> Yves Michaud, a well-known gadfly among Montreal companies, told the Bombardier annual meeting Tuesday he has begun legal proceedings to recover some of the money paid out to Tellier, who left after two years of a three-year CEO mandate.<br /> <br /> Tellier was granted a severance payout of $5.84 million, as well as a million stock options and an annual pension of $360,000.<br /> <br /> "Tellier's compensation gets the gold medal for indecency and provocation," said the verbose Michaud, as several hundred shareholders applauded.<br /> <br /> Michaud noted that one of the members of the compensation committee that drew up the agreement with Tellier was Bombardier director Jean Monty, one-time CEO of BCE Inc. and, prior to that, Nortel Networks.<br /> <br /> "He doesn't have a very prestigious business card," quipped Michaud.<br /> <br /> Laurent Beaudoin, chairman and chief executive of the firm controlled by the Bombardier family he married into, said Tellier had to be offered a premium to lure him away from Canadian National Railway Co.<br /> <br /> "Mr. Tellier did great things for Bombardier," he added.<br /> <br /> A related proposal submitted by the Carpenters Pension Trust Fund, asking for more transparency on executive pensions, garnered 13.5 per cent of the votes.<br /> <br /> Executives also had to defend the company's participation in a new train service between central China and Tibet, denounced by Tibetan activists as a way for China to solidify its domination over that region.<br /> <br /> Bombardier announced in February that a joint venture will build 361 rail coaches for the high-altitude train, a project stretching 1,142 kilometres to be completed by the middle of next year.<br /> <br /> "By partnering with the Chinese government on this project, Bombardier is giving complicit support for China's occupation and colonization of Tibet," said Tenzin Dargyal, a Quebec businessman speaking for the Canada Tibet Committee.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cpress/20050607/ca_pr_on_bu/bombardier_2">continued</a><br />