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Congratulations, fellow Canadians. In exchange for $10-billion, you and I now own 12 per cent of the biggest industrial disaster in the Western world - a company so grossly mismanaged that it loses money on every car it sells. Our tab for bailing out the auto industry in Canada - $14.5-billion so far - now exceeds the total estimated cost of our entire commitment in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, Stephen Harper didn't even bother to pretend this was a good deal for Canada, or even that we'd get our money back. He simply said that once the Americans decided to act, we had no choice. Unless we share the bailout burden, we'll probably lose every single GM job we have, along with much of the auto-parts industry. The resulting job losses, he warned, would quickly climb into six figures. Our social-support payouts would soar, and entire communities and their tax base would be devastated. In other words, our choice was between forking over and economic Armageddon.

At their joint press conference, Mr. Harper and Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty successfully impersonated a pair of guys who'd just had a near-death experience. By contrast, Barack Obama looked a lot more cheery. He assured us that a splendid Phoenix will soon be rising from the ashes of Detroit. The Bad GM will be surgically separated from the Good GM. Car sales will magically revive, at which point the U.S. government will sell its 60-per-cent stake to throngs of eager buyers. The idea is to “take a hands-off approach and get out quickly,” so that “a new GM will emerge that will give a new generation of Americans a chance to live out their dreams.”

And if you buy that, I've got a fabulous used Aztek to sell you. Lots of people are betting that the taxpayers (oops, shareholders) will be forking out a lot more dough before long. It took a generation for GM to dig itself into the hole, and it will take a revolution in costs and corporate culture to dig itself out. Millions of people under 60 have never bought a GM or Chrysler car in their lives, and they aren't inclined to start. GM's costs are still far higher than those of overseas competitors manufacturing in the U.S.

As for “hands off,” forget it. The U.S. government has already said it wants GM to make low-cost, environmentally friendly, fuel-efficient cars, a strategy that's currently incompatible with making a profit. Americans have shown no interest in such cars. The union now owns 17.5 per cent of the company. Members of Congress have already blocked a GM plan to outsource some jobs to China, and they are keenly interested in the fate of auto plants in their districts. There's no way they'll keep their hands off. “The government has conflicting policy objectives now,” veteran auto analyst John Casesa told The Wall Street Journal.

On the CBC, Buzz Hargrove was complaining that auto workers have sacrificed so much they've even had to give up their free hearing aids. In other words, he still doesn't get it. Ahead is an agonizing retrenchment that will result in a much smaller industry. As the brilliant economist Robert Reich argues, no politicians dare tell us the complete truth, which is that General Motors - along with the prosperous, middle-class world it created - is most likely in the process of disappearing for good. Even $70-billion and two desperate governments can't stop that.

The age when millions of semi-skilled factory workers could get good, steady jobs and good pensions and free hearing aids is as obsolete as buggy whips and whalebone corsets. And the real aim of the bailout “is designed to give the economy time to reduce the social costs of the blow.”

Addressing the auto workers yesterday, Mr. Obama said: “You are making a sacrifice for the next generation.” What he didn't say is that the next generation will be making a sacrifice for them. Many years from now, your kids and grandkids will still be paying the bills for trying to rescue an industry that was already beyond saving.