Bryan L. is right that the federal loan guarantee of $736 million is different than the other sums of money given to Porter and the TPA by different governments, but it is a subsidy none-the-less.  This is how it works.

Porter wants to buy additional Q400 aircraft from Bombardier but does not have the cash and does not have enough assets in the company that will give the banks the confidence to loan them money.  The federal government is keen to support Bombardier and Porter so they guarantee the loan and on the basis of that guarantee the bank provides the funds.  Porter then buys the aircraft from Bombardier.  

This is not money directly out of the federal treasury, and in that sense Bryan L. is correct.  The federal government will only have to pay the bank if Porter defaults on the loan, but it is still a subsidy.  Porter would not be able to purchase the planes and Bombardier would not be able to sell them unless the federal government provided the loan guarantee.  

This is perhaps the most important way that the government has helped Porter, because without the loan guarantee the company could not have expanded beyond the first three or four planes they bought.  Porter will have 20 planes by early next year, and that expansion would not have happened without the loan guarantee.

As the saying goes, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck.  That's what I think.  This loan guarantee is yet another government - or taxpayer - subsidy to Porter and that is the way that we should look at it.

Bill Freeman