Open this photo in gallery: Nada Hayek/The Globe and Mail Earlier this spring, on the steppes of southwestern Ontario, federal and provincial pols gathered to announce that Volkswagen would soon begin constructing a mammoth electric vehicle battery plant there. More to the point, it was a declaration that the venture would be powered by an equally mammoth subsidy from the federal government—$13 billion in production-linked funds—in the name of turbo-charging Canada’s transition to a clean energy economy. This big federal bet is merely one part of a huge new infusion of public funds, including tax credits for clean electricity investments,…