About Time!
Haven't we been saying it for ages? Haven't we? Has anyone been listening? Hardly. But the reality is Quebec is a mess of contradictions. They keep threatening to leave confederation. They want to live alongside the rest of Canada autonomously, as their own sovereign state. They are insane.
They already enjoy more autonomy, have provincial representation on the international scene, administer their own immigration programmes, are catered to and bowed low to by the rest of Canada. We, the Canadian taxpayer are even lunatic enough in this free country of ours to lavish tax dollars on the Quebec-based political party in our parliament whose sole purpose is to haul Quebec out of Canada.
Our government, in its great and good wisdom deems it politically wise to do so. So Quebec reaps all the benefits of being part of confederation, while it goes on its interminable whine-bender driving the rest of the country crazy. They feel they are unappreciated by the rest of us. We keep turning ourselves inside out trying to persuade them that we love them, we really do. Canada just wouldn't be Canada without its whingeing French-Canadian component.
So we cater to their every whim. And never, above a whisper, comment on the politics of Quebec and how inimical it is to the comfort and citizenship of the Anglais living in the province. There's the infamous bill 101 that makes teaching in English dreadfully inconvenient or putting up English signs a crime against the French language. Attempts to circumvent the Quebec Language Law will not be tolerated! In that respect Quebec is something of a whining despot.
Otherwise, the province is a model of tolerance (unless you speak English) and forward-looking social-minded probity. No premiums paid by individuals or corporations for health- and dental-care. Their child-care system is the envy of the rest of Canada (or the bane, take your pick). Where once this province was the bailiwick of the Catholic Church which actually governed lifestyle for its population, French-Canadians swiftly adapted to a secular style more suited to its social temperament.
Quebec traded in its Catholic mentor for a union-dominated one. It's the strength of Quebec trade unions that contest the provincial government's attempts to modernize the province and bring it into line with good governing practises to profit the population as a whole. The Quebec Liberal-led government was all set to bring in reforms, then quickly capitulated in the face of union opposition with its powerful lobbying tactics.
And then there's the little matter of equalization payments. Quebec steadfastly asserts it would be better off in all indices going it alone. Yet it hungrily complains that it never receives enough in transfer payments and equalization from the federal government to meet its needs. It's the 'wealthy' provinces like Ontario and Alberta whose taxes pony up to Quebec equalization payments enabling Quebec's population to have free dental and medicare and $7-a-day childcare, the envy of us all.
Yet the wealthy provinces exact a health tax through monthly premiums for their population and forget dental care if you don't have your own private insurance plan. And childcare? You're on your own chum, not enough province-assisted childcare spaces to go around and even at those the daily fees are considerably greater than those based in Quebec.
University fees at Quebec institutions are a fraction of what they are elsewhere in Canada. We subsidize the socially-healthy lifestyles of Quebecers. We envy their vaunted social programmes, so unlike our own costlier ones. We're the people who live in the wealthy provinces, after all. Minus the wealthy social programmes, damn!
Now here comes a newly-produced film by a husband-and-wife team from Quebec, entitled "Revolution tranquille" ("quiet revolution") pointing out all of that and more, dirty little secrets that French-Canadians and the government of Quebec deny, deny, deny. The film points out that Premier Jean Charest won election on a platform of "re-engineering" of the state, a position abandoned when Quebec's powerful unions engineered union protests.
Even past premier Lucien Bouchard has become critical of Quebec's inability to see itself, for even bleeding other provinces of badly-needed financial resources, Quebec is facing bankruptcy in pursuing its generous social programmes without stint. A manifesto Lucien Bouchard's group published proposed raising university tuition fees to invest in education and increasing Hydro-Quebec rates to combat the debt. He was labled a turn-coat.
Yet a recently-released poll of Quebecers found 57% of responders agreed that Quebec's social programmes "should be as generous as possible, even at the risk of indebting future generations". This certainly accords with my own casual impression of French-Canadians as feeling personally entitled, and as a group unwilling to be responsible citizens by making personal donations to charitable groups that give the real measure of a society's maturity in looking after the most vulnerable among us.
The revealing new film points out that in 2003, among the 60 American states and Canadian provinces, Quebec ranked 54th in per capita GDP, an index of living standards. Quebec is the poorest industrialized region in North America, its per-capita debt surpassed only by that of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The documentary demonstrates that Quebec spends money it doesn't have on its universal daycare, low university tuition fees, and low electricity rates.
Simply put, Quebec has handily passed on those costs to others - either by borrowing money that future generations will face, or through equalization payments the federal government uses to redistribute wealth from rich provinces to poorer ones, as professor of economics at Universite de Montreal, Claude Montmarquette, points out.
"It's billions of dollars a year, money that allows Quebec to have social programmes that often the provinces that pay cannot afford to have," Mr. Montmarquette said of the equalization payments. Pursuing this unrealistic lifestyle, Quebec appears to be a hairsbreadth away from impending crisis.
I say give them their independence.
They already enjoy more autonomy, have provincial representation on the international scene, administer their own immigration programmes, are catered to and bowed low to by the rest of Canada. We, the Canadian taxpayer are even lunatic enough in this free country of ours to lavish tax dollars on the Quebec-based political party in our parliament whose sole purpose is to haul Quebec out of Canada.
Our government, in its great and good wisdom deems it politically wise to do so. So Quebec reaps all the benefits of being part of confederation, while it goes on its interminable whine-bender driving the rest of the country crazy. They feel they are unappreciated by the rest of us. We keep turning ourselves inside out trying to persuade them that we love them, we really do. Canada just wouldn't be Canada without its whingeing French-Canadian component.
So we cater to their every whim. And never, above a whisper, comment on the politics of Quebec and how inimical it is to the comfort and citizenship of the Anglais living in the province. There's the infamous bill 101 that makes teaching in English dreadfully inconvenient or putting up English signs a crime against the French language. Attempts to circumvent the Quebec Language Law will not be tolerated! In that respect Quebec is something of a whining despot.
Otherwise, the province is a model of tolerance (unless you speak English) and forward-looking social-minded probity. No premiums paid by individuals or corporations for health- and dental-care. Their child-care system is the envy of the rest of Canada (or the bane, take your pick). Where once this province was the bailiwick of the Catholic Church which actually governed lifestyle for its population, French-Canadians swiftly adapted to a secular style more suited to its social temperament.
Quebec traded in its Catholic mentor for a union-dominated one. It's the strength of Quebec trade unions that contest the provincial government's attempts to modernize the province and bring it into line with good governing practises to profit the population as a whole. The Quebec Liberal-led government was all set to bring in reforms, then quickly capitulated in the face of union opposition with its powerful lobbying tactics.
And then there's the little matter of equalization payments. Quebec steadfastly asserts it would be better off in all indices going it alone. Yet it hungrily complains that it never receives enough in transfer payments and equalization from the federal government to meet its needs. It's the 'wealthy' provinces like Ontario and Alberta whose taxes pony up to Quebec equalization payments enabling Quebec's population to have free dental and medicare and $7-a-day childcare, the envy of us all.
Yet the wealthy provinces exact a health tax through monthly premiums for their population and forget dental care if you don't have your own private insurance plan. And childcare? You're on your own chum, not enough province-assisted childcare spaces to go around and even at those the daily fees are considerably greater than those based in Quebec.
University fees at Quebec institutions are a fraction of what they are elsewhere in Canada. We subsidize the socially-healthy lifestyles of Quebecers. We envy their vaunted social programmes, so unlike our own costlier ones. We're the people who live in the wealthy provinces, after all. Minus the wealthy social programmes, damn!
Now here comes a newly-produced film by a husband-and-wife team from Quebec, entitled "Revolution tranquille" ("quiet revolution") pointing out all of that and more, dirty little secrets that French-Canadians and the government of Quebec deny, deny, deny. The film points out that Premier Jean Charest won election on a platform of "re-engineering" of the state, a position abandoned when Quebec's powerful unions engineered union protests.
Even past premier Lucien Bouchard has become critical of Quebec's inability to see itself, for even bleeding other provinces of badly-needed financial resources, Quebec is facing bankruptcy in pursuing its generous social programmes without stint. A manifesto Lucien Bouchard's group published proposed raising university tuition fees to invest in education and increasing Hydro-Quebec rates to combat the debt. He was labled a turn-coat.
Yet a recently-released poll of Quebecers found 57% of responders agreed that Quebec's social programmes "should be as generous as possible, even at the risk of indebting future generations". This certainly accords with my own casual impression of French-Canadians as feeling personally entitled, and as a group unwilling to be responsible citizens by making personal donations to charitable groups that give the real measure of a society's maturity in looking after the most vulnerable among us.
The revealing new film points out that in 2003, among the 60 American states and Canadian provinces, Quebec ranked 54th in per capita GDP, an index of living standards. Quebec is the poorest industrialized region in North America, its per-capita debt surpassed only by that of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The documentary demonstrates that Quebec spends money it doesn't have on its universal daycare, low university tuition fees, and low electricity rates.
Simply put, Quebec has handily passed on those costs to others - either by borrowing money that future generations will face, or through equalization payments the federal government uses to redistribute wealth from rich provinces to poorer ones, as professor of economics at Universite de Montreal, Claude Montmarquette, points out.
"It's billions of dollars a year, money that allows Quebec to have social programmes that often the provinces that pay cannot afford to have," Mr. Montmarquette said of the equalization payments. Pursuing this unrealistic lifestyle, Quebec appears to be a hairsbreadth away from impending crisis.
I say give them their independence.
Labels: Government of Canada
posted by Pieface | 5:57 PM
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