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In a column Tuesday, my colleague Terence Corcoran madethe case that Bombardier executives are worth the $32 million they were paid last year, and the $10 million raise they received while begging subsidies from the federal and Quebec governments.

Corcoran is almost always right, but almost isn’t 100 per cent, and this is one of the outliers. “Whatever one might think of the billion-dollar bailouts and government loans and what appears to be Quebec Inc. cronyism, there is good reason to believe the aerospace company’s executive payouts are warranted,” Corcoran claimed, before asking, “Anybody else around who can do the job? If they can, how much would they want to be paid?”

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Well, actually … yes. I’ll take the CEO job for half Alain Bellemare’s $9.5 million. I’m absolutely confident I can fail to build streetcars on time or deliver them as scheduled; I definitely know I can inspire lawsuits from angry customers and go grossly over budget on fancy new jets; I believe that, without much assistance, I can beg for money from the Quebec government and plead for another billion or two from Ottawa; and I am relatively certain I can upset the provincial government enough to warrant the premier phoning me up to ask what in God’s name I think I’m doing.