A Brilliant, Perceptive Mind
And who might that be? Hate to admit it really, but it's right there in black and white and signed off by Maxime Bernier. Yes, he of the brightly insouciant smile, the forgetful one who leaves important Cabinet documents behind in his lover's apartment, and whose unfortunate penchant for enjoying himself a little too much in the public eye as a Conservative Cabinet Minister in a very conservative government landed him out of a job.
But his electors love him, and he is a staunch federalist, and the Conservative Party badly needs all the (few) representatives they can come up with in the Province of Quebec. And look, Mr. Bernier seems suddenly to have matured. Having written a wonderfully well reasoned article: "Toward a proud, responsible Quebec". He is to be applauded.
And perhaps recognized as having the potential for helping more than has been realized, to drag his province, still kicking and screaming, to political and social maturity.
He writes to his constituents, to his fellow Quebecois, but also to the country at large, and what he has to say, how he has articulated it, and his solutions are of immense importance. They are, above all, clearly in the realm of providing a solution to the ongoing dis-ease between Quebec and the ROC, and the unfortunate disease afflicting political and social Quebec of its perpetual adolescent-grade peevishness and resentment of Canada.
Currently, as he points out most Quebecois are satisfied with the status quo, which is to say, with remaining in Canada; even Lucien Bouchard who created the Bloc Quebecois in a fit of pique over the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, agrees that separatism is, for the moment, a cold corpse. One that the newly-peripatetic Gilles Duceppe seeks feverishly to resuscitate; he has failed to read the "do not resuscitate" orders.
Maxime Bernier is downright fed up with the continual complaints of his province that no one loves and respects it, and please send more cash. The province has overspent itself, dedicated itself to far-reaching social programs it is incapable of paying for, the result being that the province now "ranks fifth among the most indebted societies in the industrialized world, not far behind Greece".
Quebec's vision of 'profitable federalism' has it remaining in Canada as long as it profits the province to do so, and equalization payments of $8.5-billion for 2010, representing over half of the $14-billion for the entire country, is never sufficiently profitable, enticing the Bloc Quebecois on behalf of the "nation of Quebec" to warn the ROC that it will leave, if they keep ignoring its needs.
Quebec is quite content to continue gobbling up billions of dollars raised from the wealthier provinces of the country to enable it to spend and overspend. Not having to raise those funds internally, it spends like the proverbial drunken sailor. Like the adolescent whose allowance just keeps coming. And all the while the singular, most-voted party in the province sits in Parliament, paid through Canadian tax dollars, agitating for independence.
The Bloc Quebecois members can also anticipate handsome retirement benefits, not merely their other gold-plated benefits to go along with tax-paid salaries enabling them to scorn Canada, boost Quebec nationalism, and plan for secession. All the while criticizing the inadequacies of equalization, decrying a government initiative to increase Parliamentary representation for other provinces as unfair to Quebec.
In the sound words of Mr. Bernier: "We must stop presenting a false choice between independence and profitable federalism. We must also put an end to policies that lead to our impoverishment and must stop expecting the rest of Canada to bail us out. ... Imagine if, instead of pointlessly debating the merits of political independence, we tried instead to live within our means and to get out of our economic dependence.
"Imagine if, instead of having the Bloquistes always trying to impede our progress within Canada, we had a group of conservative MPs teaming up with all those who want a more decentralized federalism. That's the alternative that we have to offer Quebecers: the vision of a proud, responsible and autonomous Quebec."
Gotcha...!
But his electors love him, and he is a staunch federalist, and the Conservative Party badly needs all the (few) representatives they can come up with in the Province of Quebec. And look, Mr. Bernier seems suddenly to have matured. Having written a wonderfully well reasoned article: "Toward a proud, responsible Quebec". He is to be applauded.
And perhaps recognized as having the potential for helping more than has been realized, to drag his province, still kicking and screaming, to political and social maturity.
He writes to his constituents, to his fellow Quebecois, but also to the country at large, and what he has to say, how he has articulated it, and his solutions are of immense importance. They are, above all, clearly in the realm of providing a solution to the ongoing dis-ease between Quebec and the ROC, and the unfortunate disease afflicting political and social Quebec of its perpetual adolescent-grade peevishness and resentment of Canada.
Currently, as he points out most Quebecois are satisfied with the status quo, which is to say, with remaining in Canada; even Lucien Bouchard who created the Bloc Quebecois in a fit of pique over the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, agrees that separatism is, for the moment, a cold corpse. One that the newly-peripatetic Gilles Duceppe seeks feverishly to resuscitate; he has failed to read the "do not resuscitate" orders.
Maxime Bernier is downright fed up with the continual complaints of his province that no one loves and respects it, and please send more cash. The province has overspent itself, dedicated itself to far-reaching social programs it is incapable of paying for, the result being that the province now "ranks fifth among the most indebted societies in the industrialized world, not far behind Greece".
Quebec's vision of 'profitable federalism' has it remaining in Canada as long as it profits the province to do so, and equalization payments of $8.5-billion for 2010, representing over half of the $14-billion for the entire country, is never sufficiently profitable, enticing the Bloc Quebecois on behalf of the "nation of Quebec" to warn the ROC that it will leave, if they keep ignoring its needs.
Quebec is quite content to continue gobbling up billions of dollars raised from the wealthier provinces of the country to enable it to spend and overspend. Not having to raise those funds internally, it spends like the proverbial drunken sailor. Like the adolescent whose allowance just keeps coming. And all the while the singular, most-voted party in the province sits in Parliament, paid through Canadian tax dollars, agitating for independence.
The Bloc Quebecois members can also anticipate handsome retirement benefits, not merely their other gold-plated benefits to go along with tax-paid salaries enabling them to scorn Canada, boost Quebec nationalism, and plan for secession. All the while criticizing the inadequacies of equalization, decrying a government initiative to increase Parliamentary representation for other provinces as unfair to Quebec.
In the sound words of Mr. Bernier: "We must stop presenting a false choice between independence and profitable federalism. We must also put an end to policies that lead to our impoverishment and must stop expecting the rest of Canada to bail us out. ... Imagine if, instead of pointlessly debating the merits of political independence, we tried instead to live within our means and to get out of our economic dependence.
"Imagine if, instead of having the Bloquistes always trying to impede our progress within Canada, we had a group of conservative MPs teaming up with all those who want a more decentralized federalism. That's the alternative that we have to offer Quebecers: the vision of a proud, responsible and autonomous Quebec."
Gotcha...!
Labels: Canada, Life's Like That, Politics of Convenience
posted by Pieface | 7:35 PM
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