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It seems like just a few weeks ago that everyone was tut-tutting Donald Trump for using Twitter threats of a border tax to keep the maker of Carrier air conditioners from moving jobs out of the States. Well, actually, it was just a few weeks ago. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board blasted what it called Trump’s “shakedown,” with bad economics that would “hurt workers and the economy.”

But Americans could have it worse. Up here in Canada, it’s taxpayers who always find themselves on the receiving end of job-preserving shakedowns, the latest being Tuesday’s announcement from the federal Liberals that they would be handing Bombardier $372 million as an “an investment in thousands of middle-