Is Quebec the Future of the U.S.?
I live in Quebec, a province that always seems to be teetering on the verge of separation from Canada and striking off on its own as an independent, majority-French-speaking country. It boasts only two major industries, forestry and electricity generation tied to the American market; relies on transfer payments from the federal government in the usual futile attempt to make up for its annual budgetary shortfall; runs the largest deficit in the country; is burdened by a bloated, parasitic, and non-productive bureaucracy, especially in transportation and education; and is entangled in so much ministerial red tape that business cannot move freely in the market place. As a result, separation would quickly lead to great economic suffering or, at best, a living standard more or less equivalent to Slovakia’s after the velvet divorce.
But even if Quebec remains in the Canadian family, its future looks problematic. It is the highest taxed jurisdiction on the North American continent, and taxes in general, value added or GST surtaxes, and user fees are waistlining out by the year. Indeed, a new user fee will shortly be piled onto our single-payer medicare system, which is already prohibitively costly and seems almost totally dysfunctional. Patients wait inordinately long before being treated, are often released prematurely, and some die on corridor gurneys. For these undoubted benefits Quebec has earmarked approximately 40% of its program spending, which is, admittedly, a Canadian problem as well. (Americans, take heed, and remember, Michael Moore is a sicko liar.) Onerous auto licensing and registration fees, accompanied by hefty gasoline taxes, tend to make domestic and commuter driving more of a luxury than the necessity that it is. This raptorial scourge afflicts the municipal level too, where cities like Montreal are distinguished by outrageous property taxes, indiscriminate ticketing, and various “solidarity” excises.
To add injury to injury, like many Quebecers, I have just been hit by a proleptic revenue grab, that is, a newly mandated advance tax based on an estimate of my next year’s earnings, which must be paid in two installments before the current fiscal year is out. It is, really, a form of legalized extortion. Where else, I wonder, does one pay a portion of next year’s taxes this year? As the province sinks deeper into debt, it has sought to defray its expenses and ballooning interest payments by mortgaging the future, when the debt freight will only have increased and the means to service it correspondingly decreased. Quebec is Charlie Chaplin’s waiter, scampering ever forward to keep the glasses from falling off his tray. Moreover, the fact that approximately half the population does not pay taxes and is effectively grubstaked by the other, productive half only exacerbates the situation.
Sound familiar?
In the political/cultural sphere, the situation is no less gloomy. Bill 101, titled the Charter of the French Language and passed in 1977, proclaimed French as the official language of Quebec. At first specifying the exclusive use of French in the managerial operations of certain business firms and French only on signs and notices, later modified to require the prominent placement of French in upper-case letters with small-letter English writing inconspicuously below, it applied to all sectors of provincial life. Government agencies, the judiciary, advertising, the workplace, primary school education (with very few loopholes) came under the authority of these draconian instruments, which spawned a pettifogging outfit called the Office québécois de la langue française, popularly known as the “language police” (apparently after the phrase was used on 60 Minutes), that snuck about eavesdropping on shopfloor and office conversations and even fined pub owners for providing English-language beer coasters. The passage of the bill into law led to a mass exodus from the Anglo community, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and to the relocation of most of the head offices of major corporations, to Toronto and Calgary. Quebec has never quite recovered from the economic impact caused by the flight of business and of many of its most dynamic, tax-paying citizens.
The depletion of the census, however, is being compensated by a constantly burgeoning Islamic presence in which an ever greater role is being played by the Muslim Brotherhood. The problem is not, clearly, the peaceable community of ordinary Muslims but the threat of advancing radicalization. Through its various branch plants, like the Muslim Association of Canada, the Canadian Islamic Congress, and the Présence Musulmane Montréal (which recently hosted Islamic propagandist Tariq Ramadan), the Brotherhood is subtly advocating for the introduction of shariah law, little by little extracting concessions from our institutional apparatus, infiltrating our political parties, cozying up to the media, practicing the tactic of lawfare, and gradually proliferating in a network of mosques and prayer venues, of which there are 69 in the Montreal area alone. The city is now home to 200,000 Muslims. This is about one fifth the number currently residing in Canada which amounts to approximately 4% of the country’s population and growing.
Sound familiar?
It gets even more interesting. Quebec has a history of electoral malversation — I recall as a child, during the blatantly crooked administration of Premier Maurice Duplessis, coming across heaps of destroyed ballots in the gully behind the public school. When we look at the electoral procedures during the second Quebec referendum of 1995 on the issue of secession, or what was euphemistically called “sovereignty-association” in the first 1980 referendum and “sovereignty” tout court in the 1995 question, we are back in the Duplessis era. The No side won by around 1 percent of the vote, but the actual result was not quite as close as it seemed. For the pro-independence, Parti Québécois scrutineers invalidated, by one count, 86,000 No ballots on the flimsiest of pretexts, for example, the kern of the X trailed slightly outside the index box, or was smudged, or inked rather than pencilled. I suspect the number was higher than that. In the mainly Anglophone riding of Chomedy, one out of every nine ballots was rejected. The fraud was later covered up by the Quebec Superior Court, which restricted access to the ballots and eventually destroyed them entirely. Subject closed. There were also reports of elderly people from the English community turned away from the voting booths or forced to wait until their patience gave out. Others were simply misdirected to nonexistent or more remote polling locations. Additionally, the separatist Parti Québécois refuses to take No for an answer and has vowed to conduct future referenda until it gets the answer it wants. Perhaps its motto should be: If at first you don’t secede, try and try again.
Isn’t the answer simply to let the frog eaters to go down the tube?
It is clearly what they want.
James from Oz is correct.
I worked in French in Quebec at the time of the first Quebec separation attempt.
Was amazed at Claude, the sister of the would-be chief economist of the separatist party — zero concern for the sure suicidal economic impact of separation. Not even on her RADAR screen.
Heads up: Also lived through the start of free healthcare in Canada; the transition was seamless and a jillion times less crazed than today in the USA. Do the math.
You lived through the start of FREE healthcare in Canada? Is lunch also free in Canadian restaurants?
Kindly allow me to respond respectfully, JWE. I have shared minor Canadian-history vignettes with this community, knowing that few of us were there; your hindsight does not change what happened.
The messaging at that time and place, in French, English, Arabic, Algonquin, and Kree was: “care will be free in Canada.” Most took the message at face value; few recognized the dynamics of the costs. It seemed to be all upside to me, half my present age, a casual American observer abroad, ineligible to vote in Canada.
Many casual observers in the USA today naively see only upside; others relish government-imposed theft. But you know that or you’d not be alarmed.
James, seriously, you have nothing intelligent to provide to the discussion ?
While Australia is a great country, the cost of living there is high even by Québec standards… just looking at the menu from the Hog’s Breath Café proves it. While their steaks are very good, (I had a couple while I visited) the prices are ridiculously high.
I have compared the figures for average weekly earning in the United States (fxtrade.oanda.com) and Australia (abs.gov.au). They are: US: $636.50; Australia: $1,252.90.
Could this possibly be right? It would explain the difference in prices, but it seems an extreme gap – perhaps it’s a mean vs median thing? I do know that friends who have lived in the US (but being paid as Australians) rave about the excellent shopping.
Looking at the GNI for each country (according to BBC):
USA: GNI per capita: US $47,580 (World Bank, 2008)
Australia: GNI per capita: US $40,350 (World Bank, 2008)
Canada: GNI per capita: US $41,730 (World Bank, 2008)
I can’t see how they could earn double the US average…
Now looking at cost of living (http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_countries_result.jsp?country1=Australia&country2=Canada):
Indexes Difference
Consumer Prices in Canada are 9.77% lower than in Australia
Consumer Prices Including Rent in Canada are 11.31% lower than in Australia
Rent Prices in Canada are 14.43% lower than in Australia
Restaurant Prices in Canada are 14.55% lower than in Australia
Groceries Prices in Canada are 15.01% lower than in Australia
Local Purchasing Power in Canada is 17.23% lower than in Australia
I think the reason Australian average wages are so high is because Australian minimum wages are extremely high. This is something new and time will tell if it is sustainable. I suspect it was a gift to the citizens in trade for votes but eventually it will come back to bite them in the ass. You cannot legislate everyone into the middle class.
yeah but you dont have to tip in Australia
I am a francophone Quebecer, and I agree with most of Solway’s comments, but I don’t think that many Americans, or Canadians in other provinces for that matter, would tolerate having a language used by a minority of the population as the one predominantly displayed in their day to day lives. Bill 101 has its shortcomings, and some of its proponents are indeed “Apostrophe SS”, but that does not make it inherently unjust.
Mathieu, here in Florida we see signs in Spanish all the time, and are not the least bit troubled by it. Well, I suppose that some people are, but it’s not the language issue, but the problem of harboring ill feelings toward a minority. Like in Quebec.
One of the more interesting political movements that flourished in Quebec in the 60s and 70s was Social Credit. led by a firebrand car salesman named Real Caouette. It was actually imported from western Canada where they ran provinces for years. In Alberta the government tried to take over the banks in the 30s but ran into a legal wall. When oil was discovered, they stopped trying to apply the principles of the movement, which no one in the public ever understood in any event. In Quebec they were determined to apply those principles in the federal arena.
Social Credit’s monetary policy was called “funny money” by the public. Their idea seemed to be that neither the state nor individuals need ever be poor because the state owned the printing presses. Needed money? Print it. People were lacking? Send them a cheque.
There was probably more to it than that but Social Credit never did take over the federal government. In Canada. In the US “funny money” seems to be exactly the policy that the Obama government is following. Raul Caouette I’m sure would approve.
I’m Canadian and if I remember my high school history classes correctly, the ideology of Social Credit collapsed the first time it was tried in Western Canada back in the 1930s. Someone challenged a key aspect of the Social Credit program – I don’t recall which one – in court and the court ruled that it was unconstitutional (or words to that effect since we didn’t actually have a formal constitution at the time, just the British North America Act).
The economic theory of Social Credit pretty much boiled down to eliminating fractional reserve banking (which creates money supply by loans) in favor of the government just making new money itself. There would be no taxes (at least on real property), because the government would be financing itself with fiat money created to match the necessary expansion of the economy; any excess money that needed to be created would be issued to the citizenry. If this were properly balanced, it wouldn’t be any more inflationary than banks being able to make fractional reserve loans. (Whether this would work or not is hard to say, since it’s never been tried, but I tend to think no.) Of course, to do it required that the government have the power to issue fiat money.
So, Social Credit, the party, won control of Alberta. Provinces weren’t allowed to issue fiat money. The Social Credit party tried to invent a substitute for the power to print money, and the Supreme Court of Canada said, “No, you can’t do that.” The British theorist behind Social Credit (C. H. Douglas) also denounced Alberta’s attempt at a substitute, since it decayed in value over time, as “the heaviest form of continuous taxation ever devised”. Shortly thereafter, Social Credit the party ceased to have any meaningful connection to Social Credit the theoretical economic system.
Thanks for fleshing out my hazy recollection of the history of Social Credit
High school was a long time ago and my memory has not retained much of the details….
Quebec’s third main industry: arrogance.
Vote with your feet, Mr. Solway.
Where would he go? Not to the US of Obama!. In another five years we will be the Quebec of the South. Consider Detroit and what the Muslims have done there. It’s just like Quebec and with the Left’s PC and multiculturalism we are almost a lost cause.
He could come to Alberta.
Yes, in time, it looks like Detroit will be the first islamic state of America and Quebec the first islamic province of Canada.
That’s an understatement!
That’s what I never understood about far-left liberals in this country. Why are they always so anxious to copy programs and a form of government that never works, as in Quebec? They can actually see that places like Quebec and Greece are broke and that all of the other social-welfare states in Europe are bust as well. So why, why, do we want to be like them? Europe also proves that you can only soak the “evil rich” for so much money before all of the social-welfare programs destroy you. So this is success? This is what we want in America? Unless, of course, the far-left liberals are so selfish that they don’t care what happens to this country so long as somebody else is paying for it. Well, gang, guess what? YOU are that “somebody else.”
November. Put a stop to it in November.
They don’t care, as long as they are in charge. They had rather rule in hell than serve in heaven.
Their theory is that it’s never been tried by “The Right People” meaning them. They can make it work because they are so much smarter than anyone that’s tried it in the past.
Of course everyone else that’s tried it had the same theory. They just can’t see that it’s a failed top heavy system that can’t possibly sustain itself.
The reason you don’t understand their continued grasping at failure is that your perceiving the goal improperly. You ask, “Why enact such laws that have failed over and over and throughout the world?” A fair question when one actually believes that the laws are being implemented for the benefit of the public; however, such is not the case. Whether the law works or fails is irrelevant (in fact its likely not even a concern), all that matters is that power is accreted to some central authority over which they have control.
Why do you ask? I could give you several answers. Here is one that might explain why at least some people support these failed ideas. Our current system my produce less misery than the one they are trying to create. But our system is also somewhat chaotic. The other system even if fails in goals to end misery is more orderly. I think those on left value order more above everything else.
Quebec is a Canadian parasite that should have been thrown out of Confederation many years ago. They should have left with that which they brought: Gaspe and a strip of land a few miles wide on the Northern bank of the St Lawrence. Northern Quebec and its resources could become its own province or join Newfoundland and Labrador….including Churchill Falls. The Seaway access needs to be guaranteed. At that point, we can all sit back and watch the Muzzies and the French fighting it out.
For the Maritimes and Ontario this will be a better scenario than having Western Canada which is much more viable (Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia) separate with their renewable and non-renewable but massive resources of oil, coal, uranium, potash, wheat and lumber. The West has been raped for decades by the Central Government and if Quebec goes look for Ontario to be on its own very quickly. The West is unlikely to continue to finance the rest of the country by legislation designed to have the responsible finance the irresponsible Central Canadian parasites of Ontario and Quebec.
Hear! Hear! Very well said.
Quebequois were allowed to keep their language as a barrier for the remnent invasion of US immigrants, even after the 1812 war, when a handful of “voltigeurs” defended bravoulsy Montreal against America
Do you live in the West, Canuck? I’ve have the feeling for a while now that Western separatism is coming back. And you’re right. We could make it on our own, hands down.
My only question, Mr. Solway, is: why on Earth would you continute to live in such a place? Those “preemptive taxes” alone would cause me to re-locate.
I agree, so many Anglos (mostly Jews) left Quebec in the 1970′s when Trudeau came to power. There is nothing there for anyont who is not a Francophone. Added to that, they now have a huge Moslem population. I would not step foot in the province of Quebec for all the cheese in France.
When the ONLY language that you speak is French and when “the leftist media” always told you that the world famous “Quebec model” was the best there is, you don’t even think about moving somewhere else. For a lot of Quebecers, most people are dying into the streets of ROC and of the United States. High taxes is a small price to pay. If you truly want to understand the reality in Quebec, try the movie “the Village” with Joaquin Phoenix. Replace the title by “Quebec” and think that the village is actually the province of Quebec.
I once worked with a number of bilingual Quebeckers, all of whom were francophones. I remember one of them telling me that they are essentially conditioned from day one to believe that they are hated in the ROC (Rest of Canada). This individual had undergone a major awakening when they moved to Ontario and finally lived outside Quebec for the first time….
“Where else, I wonder, does one pay a portion of next year’s taxes this year?”
Germany. I began working in late 2006 in Germany and did not pass the taxable threshold. In 2007, I did. Then, when I filed my taxes for 2007, an interesting surprise was waiting. I was asked to pay 2007′s taxes, and 2008′s taxes in advance. This includes a 19% value added tax on labour, income tax, as well as social solidarity taxes. Then, they asked for 2009′s taxes at the same time. I explained that it would not be possible to pay taxes for 2007, on money that I did indeed earn, as well as 2008 and 2009 in advance, that is, on money I had not yet earned. All of this easily surpassed 100% on my income.
Now, it is 2010, and I got seriously jacked by the Tax office. When 2008′s taxes where filed in 2009, I expected a refund. After all, I earned more in 2007 and had already paid 2008 based on my higher 2007 income. Wrong. I got a bill asking for almost all of the remainder of my 2008 income. The reason given? None. They had not even credited my account with my pre-paid taxes. For all intents and purposes, I paid those taxes, they disappeared into the government ether, then I had to pay them again. Ditto 2009 and 2010. Now, I am definitely owed money back for 2009 and 2010 that I paid in advance. Of course, I won’t get it.
And what exactly do I have to show for years of overpaid taxes? Absolutely nothing. The National Socialists printed “Community good before individual good” on the side of some of their coins to remind people that the state did expect you to be your brother’s keeper. (Or well, any aryan brother’s keeper.) Frankly, the government still has the same view of my money. What I wonder, is why must I take care of the families of others to an extent that I can’t take care of my own?
That is just surreal! I can’t believe that they made you pre-pay taxes before you’d even earned the income – how on Earth did you come up with the money? – and then failed to credit you for it anyway, then asked you for the money AGAIN! That’s not even close to being fair. Isn’t there any way you can fight this in court? Surely such actions can’t be legal!
So one would think. Pre-paying taxes is relatively common in Germany, especially for entrepreneurs. I even know some non-entrepreneurs who have been sent their tax bills in advance as well. In order to keep myself from going insane, I have to add some comedy into the mix. Every time I get a letter from the tax office, I have to close my eyes and mentally envision Whimpy telling Popeye “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a Hamburger today.” Except, in my vision, Whimpy is a junkie and promising to paint your house next year if you front him the money for a fix to calm his shakes.
As for how on earth I came up with the money? In 2008, I paid my taxes for 2007 and 2008. in 2008, I paid for 2009. Because I scrimped in 2007 and paid two years worth of taxes instead of investing it in my business, growth was stifled. (Obviously.) Now, I have gotten a revision bill for 2008 demanding roughly 95% of the money I made that year. I will not pay this bill for two reasons. 1. Principle. It isn’t their money. 2. I can’t. But then, who can exactly? So, I am stuck here for the time being fighting this excessive bill. Using lawyers (which cost money) and not working that much because my plan was to already be gone. The agreement I was forced into was to double pay 2008′s taxes, which is less than 95% of all taxable income, but far greater than what I need to maintain a semblance of a middle class life. (I don’t own a car here. It would never be possible to afford it. This is “middle class” in Germany. I also rent. It isn’t possible to buy a home, even a cheap one.) And once I arrive in the US, I will have to launch the same fight for 2009′s taxes, and try to reclaim my 2010 taxes because I won’t pass the taxable threshold. (Even though I prepaid those taxes.)
All in all, it is a losing battle. The Germany tax office operates more like a mafia. The citizen is assumed to be a criminal first (please see Etab’s #13 comment about black markets) and must fight to prove innocence in tax matters. I have never been taxed according to a formula; it is more like haggling in an Arab market. I suggest a price, they demand more, I suggest again, they scream and say “But I’ve got kids to feed! We need more money!” Then eventually you settle on a price that is far more than you should pay, but less than their first demands. Of course, in an Arab market, you never get ambushed a year later with a demand to pay even more. And of course, you get possession of your purchase when you pay for it, not a year or two years down the road.
In short, Socialism sucks. It creates a vicious cycle of tapped out citizens starving themselves to provide a higher standard of living for the workshy than they themselves enjoy, and it also forms a permanent underclass that has learned their best chance at living a good life involves not working and teaching their children to do the same. Do I even have to say how much it angers me to see programmes where the long term unemployed have a car, pets (heavily taxed here!), and a new flatscreen? A Flatscreen that is better than the 15 year old dinosaur I’m watching them on? Do I even have to add, that I usually see these programmes after a good 12-15 hours of work?
I have no trouble imagining your frustration with this bizarre system. I am still trying desperately to wrap my head around it. Frankly, the idea of “taxation by haggling”, as you describe it, just seems surreal. I’m sure many people would think you’re just making this whole thing up but there is a ring of truth to your writing so I’m going to assume you’re not just putting me on.
In our Canadian tax system, there is legislation stating what the rate of tax is for each income range and I suppose I’ve just always assumed that every (democratic) country worked the same way. It’s just mind-boggling to try to picture a system where the tax collectors negotiate the amount of tax with the taxpayer over the phone. And a tax rate of 95% is appalling! It reminds me of the Beatles song Taxman which also refers to a 95% tax rate – “1 for me, 19 for you….”.
Remind me to never live in Germany!
No, I assure you, I am not putting you on at all. (I actually thought the same thing for quite a while myself. It would have been hilariously surreal on t.v. When it is your name at the bottom of all the forms, eh, not so much.) Perhaps the strangest part is that I’m not alone. I have met quite a few people who have had similar problems. From what I can glean, I made a few mistakes. In the first few years, I paid all of my taxes on time. It was not easy, but I did it. This apparently is not the way to be self-employed in Germany. You have to pretend like you can’t pay and file several complaints known as a “Widerspruch”. This means essentially that you are contesting their rulings. I did not do this enough, which meant that they thought I had money stashed that I wasn’t declaring. (As ALL Germans do. Every single one of them works under the table. Over the table work is just not possible.) This was also reinforced by the fact that I made much more money in 2007, my first full year of work in Germany. They didn’t think I could make that money legally. (Obviously, the fact that I was resourceful and worked triple time to grow my business didn’t occur to them.) Then, they started creating problems. They refused to issue all the right permits, and I had to go to different government offices every couple of weeks, which had a negative effect on the business. So, I made less in 2008. And they assumed I was hiding some of it. So now, even though they haven’t officially declared that I worked under the table, they are going to try to take almost all of my taxable income as declared.
There are quite a few reasons for this. Germany’s labour laws still operate on the basis of centuries old guilds. If you want to work in almost any job, you have to have a state approved diploma in that field. They have them for everything from food service to meat slicer. Each “degree”, even the one that allows you to check out groceries in the supermarket, requires at least 18-24 months of practically unpaid labour and study. If you didn’t go to grocery checkout school, too bad. Opening your own business is just as difficult. Some people are required to pay a year or two of taxes before the business is even allowed to open. (This is based on projections provided, of course, by the Tax Office.) Opening a small business in Germany can (and does) take up to a year and costs sometimes in the low 6 figures.
This is why everything in Germany is done under the table. Which, by the way, is something I have never done. Not once. I talked with an accountant when the business was just starting and I can remember every word she said to me. I explained the business model, talked about marketing, client base etc. Eventually she just stopped me and said “If you ever want to survive in Germany, you have to learn how to play the rules. You can’t play by them or you will never last.” This seemed extreme at the time, but if you stop and remember that 70,000 former Stasi workers are still employed by the Germany government, it all starts to make sense. They also work with spy networks, rely on your competition or children “denouncing” you, and more than anything, they believe that all you have is theirs. It is their right to decide to leave you something. In their eyes, I should be happy with my 5%.
If you want to know more about how things work here, just google “Germany brain drain.”
Sounds to me like it is time for an armed rebellion. Oh wait…..never mind
Heh, the problem is that too many people bought into the socialist notion of the phrase “I am my brother’s keeper”.
I believe it was meant as encouragement to not let “your brother” starve to death or fall into bad habits — not give “your brother” the same (or better) standard of living as you and reward improvidence.
Of course now that noble concept has been completely besmirched, and thus will never be taken seriously again (or at least for a very long time).
Of course, this idea also went hand in hand with the fable of “The Ant and the Grasshopper.” In the modern version, the crickets all decide that there is an inequitable division of food in the insect world and tax the ant accordingly. He has to tighten his belt, but he survives the winter. Then, the crickets decide that the grasshopper needs a good environment suitable to produce a productive worker, so the grasshopper is allowed to move into the ant’s house. The ant begins to gather less food since he knows that half of every grain will go to the grasshopper. All attempts to talk about the inequitable devision of LABOUR instead of the amount of food each one has leads to a stern rebuke from the other insects. Then the crickets decide that the ant may be out of hand and ask him to pay them the grasshopper’s 50% of his grain for the coming year in advance. The ant suggests an alternate storage location for their designs on his harvest and moves somewhere else. Wash rinse repeat until a nation of grasshoppers is trying to figure out where they can get more ants from before they have to get their hands dirty.
Right on the mark, David. One thing, though. If the Quebec separatists really want to leave Canada, they merely have to put the question to all Canadians and not just Quebeckers. I think most of us, sick of this blackmail, would say, “Don’t let the screen door hit your a$$ on the way out.”
Agreed, but why wait for Quebec to make the first move?
I was a victim of the PQ ethnic cleansing of the 80s. I often wondered where our Federal government was. To me and it still seems so, that Canadians are more interested in protecting the rights minorities in other countries than they are at home.
Being in a position that I can now decide if I wish to invest in Quebec and to some degree Canada, guess what I and many other victims of the PQ ethnic cleansing decide to do. Of course if you do a search on Wikipedia for Quebec terrorists you will find the page has been deleted, the Quebec government at work?.
There is of course non prosecution of terrorists in Quebec to consider, these make the black panther seem like a minor infraction.
They can keep there medicare and high taxes, I have no use for career politicians who ignore the wishes of the people.
It’s not just terrorists that sometimes get the kid glove treatment. Twenty odd years ago, a man walked into the National Assembly (the home of the PROVINCIAL government of Quebec) and dressed in a military uniform and shot up the legislature, killing three members of the legislature before being tackled by the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Assembly. He was only convicted of SECOND Degree murder, even though he was wearing a uniform, carrying weapons, and, if memory serves, had arrived at the Assembly building via public transit. It’s hard to picture a much-more premeditated act yet they chose not to try him for First Degree murder. I don’t recall his sentence – or even his name – but I heard that he was having escorted leaves from prison to play golf within a few years of his conviction.
I am still stuck in Quebec. Being born to immigrant parents I think they were short changed in coming to Quebec. For a better life? Being called maudit immigrant and Nazi all the time, how about suing the Canadian government for false misrepresentation. They had the rug pulled out from under them when the $hit hit the fan. My father was 59 at the time, could he have found another job at that age with the same salary. I wouldn’t want to be in that position today. Canadians have no back bone and that’s why the french torment this country the way they do. Any takers on suing for millions? I know I have been socially scared. Come on we need to put an end to all of this.
As a french Quebecois, I have to agree to this analysis. In 1968, I was a delegate to the founding Congress of the independantist Parti Quebecois. I was young, and years brought maturity and insight. Now, my society being painted in its socialist corner, I can foresee that there’s no chance for a Quebec libre. And here’s the lesson for you, Americans.
Even if being hard-working (the american “Work hard,play hard”), Quebecers are above all Latin: fun-loving, bread-and-circuses-loving, freeloaders, moochers and from-the-cradle-to-the-grave liberal-socialists. But, right now, too many lives on the teets of the State (intentionnally induced). Being unconsciously enslaved, some still dreams of liberty and freedom, but there’s no echo, as just-enough-confortable dumbed eunuchs won’t rise from their couches.
Liberty is no more viable and/or recommended for these hedonists. As for Americans now: if you’re spineless, you can’t stand upright and strong to defend Liberty against tyranny. Because Liberty is granted to Fighters only.
“Patients wait inordinately long before being treated, are often released prematurely, and some die on corridor gurneys.”
Gosh, you’d think that such a terrible system of socialized medicine, Canadians would rise up and demand that their government give them a system based on the American model. And yet….
Canada is heading towards free market healthcare. It used to be illegal to provide private care in Canada. However the Canadian court recently ruled that access to health care (national health insurance) is not the same thing as health care, so now it is legal to privately provide health care in Canada .
I believe it will be a combination of private/public. Look up the Swiss system, that is what we are moving to, and it is a good mix. They just can’t say it in the open as the media goes insane.
The problem is most Canadians don’t know how bad it is. Until you get really sick the system works. It’s only when you need some serious (expensive) health care that it fails. I personally know a man who when he was 84 was told if he didn’t get a bypass operation he would die within a few years. He couldn’t get it in Canada. He had $100,000 from the sale of his farm and he had his house. He decided at his age he would rather give the money to his four children then go to the U.S. for an operation. His wife was angry about his decision but kept quiet and didn’t tell the children. He died two years later. He was a proud Canadian who remained proud of Canada even after it failed him.
Quebec has been a pain in the derriere for over 200 years. The Quebecois do not, nor have they ever had any REAL intentions of separating. They are nothing but spoiled children who throw a temper tantrum until mommy (the federal government) gives in.
PLEASE, PLEASE LEAVE, and don’t slam the door on your way out…..
Well, see my earlier post, TG. I would disagree with your earlier post, however, in that Montreal can still be a nice place to “visit”.
Yom Kippur was not that long ago. So, given it is in both my interests, and your interests, for you to mature in your Jewish faith, I have this for you: Take a look at http://www.maximebernier.com
At least he has the courage of his convictions to challenge the Office of the Prime Minister, when that office is wrong.
Something else about Quebec. With the high taxes – where the provincial taxes are higher than the federal taxes, where gas, real estate, etc taxes are the highest in the country – the result has been the growth of an enormous black market.
The amount of business done outside of ‘official business’ and outside the reach of taxation, has reached massive proportions in Quebec. This is a result both of the high taxation – the greed of the socialist government, and the greed of the unions.
Unions in Quebec hold the population hostage. There is no choice; to work in the various professions – from academia to housepainting, you must join a union. The surface rhetoric is – you don’t ‘have’ to join. But if you are working in that profession, your dues are automatically deducted.
If you want to set up your own business, in, eg, painting – the union will prevent you from doing so until you join their union. Summer student painting? No way – since you are not a member of the union, they’ll confine you to doing only local small houses.
The welfare ideology is also a basic axiom. Quebec’s university fees are the lowest in the country – and Quebec’s universities are financed, not by the province but by the federal taxes. Heh. BUT – if you are from another province, even though that university is paid by the federal taxes, well, your fees are higher. Oh, and if you are from any French-speaking country in the world, you are not going to pay the fees of an international student. And not even the fees of a student from ‘the Rest of Canada’. Nope. You pay the same low fee as a Quebecer. Subsidized by…the people of ‘the Rest of Canada’.
Quebec has set up a population completely dependent on socialism, with a high ratio of people who pay no taxes – yet who live off government money, whether within the ridiculously low child care (7.00 a day), welfare, health care, etc. The bloated bureaucracy have jobs-for-life, with elite benefits, health care, and pensions.
How does Quebec manage to pay for this? Heh. It doesn’t. It has that enormous debt. But, above all, Quebec is securely nested within the taxpayers of Canada. It is these taxpayers who subsidize Quebec, who pay for all of Quebec’s programs. Object? Then Quebec instantly accuses ‘Canadians’ (Quebecers don’t consider themselves as Canadians)..of being ‘anti-Quebec’. Threatening to secede. The Rest of Canada, for the most part, heartily wishes they would do just that…and Quebec considers such a sentiment ‘francophobia’.
Quebec will never leave its safe home in the basement of Canada. Secure, fed and housed, able to focus its attention, not on jobs, not on developing an operating economic infrastructure (the roads, bridges, hydro etc are a mess)..but on ‘culture’. That’s right. Quebec considers itself the ‘cultural elite’ of Canada and produces many small…yes..federally subsidized..films.
Even to mention reducing their film and art subsidies enrages Quebec, for they consider that they alone ‘have culture’…while ‘Canada’ (that amorphous American-clone out there)..has ‘no culture’.
It’s a sad situation – and despite clear-headed Quebecers telling them that such a lifestyle can’t be continued..they dance on.
…a high ratio of people who pay no taxes – yet who live off government money
It is this ratio which is part of the problem. Quite a few Quebecois are average hardworking productive citizens. When the ratio of government-supported to net-taxpaying hits 1:3 (i.e. 75% supporting 25%), you’ve got big problems. When that ratio hits 1:1, those problems are insurmountable and the system is undermined.
Another big part of the problem is the transfer payment system, which masks the effects of bad policy-making in various provinces by punishing the provinces which make good policy decisions. Without the transfer payment system, bad policy decisions would become glaringly obvious and corrected.
Likewise, good policy decisions – such as the fact that Alberta has no provincial sales tax – would also be glaringly obvious and emulated.
I too an a Quebecker member of the Anglo diaspora now resident of the Niagara region of Ontario. All of our children have also left Quebec in most cases with a certain reluctance after deciding that neo-fascism was not for them as a steady diet. However because I spent most of my working life in the belly of the beast – the higher education system – there are a few things I know which most anglophones are unaware of.
First and foremost the government of Quebec does not and I repeat not operate in French. Internally yes – externally no. How could French only be possible on the North American continent? Imagine Hydro Quebec insisting on French only while negotiating contracts with New York State and extend that everywhere in the Anglosphere So while draconian penalties are applied to Quebec businesses which do not adhere to the stupid language laws, the government itself ignores them.
Second, in higher education in the realms of business and pure and applied science, the textbooks used are in English. (Check it out for yourself, David, in a tour of UQAM and UdeM bookstores.) One reason is to get the best cutting edge relevance available. The second is cost. Francophonoie with a world population of at most one hundred million cannot compete with the anglosphere in generating knowledge and ideas as well as providing textbooks at reasonable prices.
As for the Quebec separation threat of how catastrophic this would be for the Maritimes by cutting them off geographically, the last time I looked Alaska was cut off from the rest of the USA in just the same way and it seems to bwe doing splendidly nevertheless.
Re: the Maritimes being cut off from “upper Canada”
All you need to do is look at the official provincial maps of QC for their border with Labrador and realize that the Quebecois, in fact, have territorial designs on the other provinces. A sovereign Quebec could cause problems in the region; e.g. block shipping on the Saint Laurent in an effort to force an “exchange”. OTOH, this sort of hi-jinks so close to home is not something that would be well tolerated below the 49th. There could be the first cross-border movement of armed forces in 200 years if things get really dicey.
“As for the Quebec separation threat of how catastrophic this would be for the Maritimes by cutting them off geographically, the last time I looked Alaska was cut off from the rest of the USA in just the same way and it seems to bwe doing splendidly nevertheless.”
Good point, Millie. I’ve always been a bit reluctant to push the Western separatist ticket for fear of what might happen to our Maritime cousins, but I had never thought of looking at Alaska as a parallel. Heck, the Maritimers might even be in a better situation, what with their being on a major international seaboard.
When the central pillar of a society (such as the Roman Catholic faith) is removed from a society, “something” will fill the vacuum left. Some thought it would be “socialism” (or one of the localized variants).
Like Lady Margaret Thatcher said.
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].”
So that “pillar” crumbles, what then fills the void? Islam. With the hold Islam has on on French society, (and Quebec has ever looked to France, the ‘Mother country’ for guidance and structure, not the conquering British), it IS NOT SURPRISING.
There is no such thing as “the Roman Catholic faith”. There is Christian belief, faith, and practice, as defined by the Church of Rome (aka, the Roman Catholic Church), just as there is Christian belief, faith, and practice as defined by the Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, and Anglican churches.
When Christian belief, faith, and practice – however, defined – become irrelevant, then predictable things happen, as we see in today’s Quebec.
Frankly, I think Britain is in worse shape than France right now where kowtowing to Islamism is concerned.
On top of which, opposition to the Alberta oil sands is very active in Quebec, even from the Quebec provincial government itself.
So they condemn with one hand and rake in the proceeds with the other. The hypocrisy is sickening.
Canada could become a great nation without these leaches sucking us dry. The undercurrent of hate towards quebec, especially the West, is very carefully kept under wraps by federal governments regardless of their political stripe.
If I had my way we would throw these amphibious pond dwellers and their gold plated lily pads out of Canada and force them to stand on their own webbed feet.
Thank you david for your article. We are up to almost 400 attendees and will very soon be sold out for our event. I beleieve there is hope for even very statist Quebec.
People outside of Quebec have no idea of the ‘culture’, of the mentality of the Quebecois. The ROC (rest of Canada) sees Quebec, in many ways, as ‘a province’ of Canada. But Quebecers don’t see themselves as part of Canada. And they view ‘Canadians’ as mere hapless clones of ‘the Americans’.
Canadians will readily visit Quebec. But Quebecers rarely visit anywhere outside of Quebec. They view the Rest of Canada as a foreign country, as part of the world anglosphere, and have no desire to visit.
Their main travels are to Florida, where they have set up a mini-Quebec, with their own French newspaper, and where they go for the weather – and don’t mingle with ‘the Americans’.
They see themselves as trapped within Canada; they view their federal taxes as theft, and consider that If Only they didn’t pay these taxes, THEN, they’d be financially wealthy. They refuse to accept that their intake from the taxpayers of the ROC is far more than their federal taxes; and that they cannot pay for their generous social programs – without that money from the Rest of Canada. What do they give back? Nothing.
They receive various special benefits. For example, the dairy industry is dominated almost exclusively, by law, by Quebec. You may have cows in Alberta but you certainly can’t get the legal rights to market that cream and milk as much as Quebec.
Academic research grants are provided, in Canada, almost exclusively by the federal government – and these boards know that they must always, always, give grants to Quebec. Regardless of merit.
Power in the government? By law, Quebec gets 75 seats, one fourth of the size of parliament. The West, with a higher population, has fewer seats. And, Quebec has been allowed, for some insane reason, its own federal party – one that the ROC cannot vote for. The ‘Bloc Quebecois’, a party devoted to separation, but that sits in the federal parliament. Its members are voted in only by Quebecers. It has become the default party of Quebec, and has virtually guaranteed that Canada’s parliament will always be a minority.
These members of parliament vote on federal issues – but- are beyond the electoral reach of the majority of Canadians. They receive federal salaries and pensions – despite being devoted to work against Canada. Does any other province have its own federal party, whose members are unavailable for accountability to other Canadians? Nope.
By law, all federal services must be provided in both English and French. But Canada is not a bilingual country. Over 80% of Canadians use English only. The cost of this bilingualism – including providing services in areas where less than 1% of the population speaks French – is enormous. Does Quebec provide such services for its population? No. Road signs etc, that can be necessary for safety while driving, are provided only in French. How’s that for welcoming American and..Canadian visitors?
The result of this bilingualism has meant that a closed and isolate civil service has developed in Ottawa, filled with francophones from the Montreal-Ottawa area, who remain isolate from the rest of the country, operating within a mindset focused only around Quebec-Ontario..who see no reality beyond this geographic area.
It’s a mess, and becomes more and more ‘virtual’ and far-from-reality as time passes.
‘Excellent analyses, ETAB.
One more thing: because federal, civil servants must be bilingual, nearly all of them are from Quebec. As most Canadians from the other nine provinces and three territories do not speak French, the federal, bureaucratic jobs are not available to them. So, whatever government is in power in Ottawa, the civil service is almost exclusively run by les Quebecois, who claim to want out of Canada. What hypocrites! The situation is an utter scandal. (And our elites march on, in lock step with this fraud, which the ROC pays for through the teeth. Quel pays!)
Oh, and one more thing: Quebec’s social pathologies are massive. Among other things, it has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of abortions and suicides and the lowest number of marriages in Canada. Once Quebecers got rid of the Church in the 60s, not only Muslims filled the void: an altogether laissez faire attitude to morality also reared its ugly and unsustainable head. Yes, Quebec is a mess—a mess the rest of us are expected to pay for . . . and pay for . . . and pay for. (And we’re not supposed to complain either.)
If there were another referendum, in which all Canadians could vote on whether Quebec should go or stay, I believe the ROC would vote overwhelmingly for this ugly stepsister to get lost: Quebec’s altogether a spoiled, whiny, UNGRATEFUL brat. We’re sick to death of its corruption (another ACORN, but worse because it actually includes government malfeasance, at every level) and Gallic arrogance. Just go—s’il vous plaît!
Agreed, Lookout (and SDAer!). That’s a key issue, that the federal civil service is almost exclusively francophone, because Canada set itself up in the 1980s as ‘officially bilingual’.
But that is a ‘virtual’ or imaginary Canada. The reality is that only 20% of Canadians are, and will ever be, bilingual. And they are almost exclusively in Quebec, forced by the necessity (that’s reality)of trade with the US and the ROC, into speaking English. This is the reality. It means that our federal civil service is run almost exclusively by Quebecers, who view any people and any economy and any geography outside of Quebec as irrelevant.
It means that over 80% of Canadians are barred from any high position in government, in the military, in the judiciary, in the civil service. How’s that for democracy? The result is a population alienated from participation in government and instead, acting in a passive ‘what’s the govt going to do for me’ attitude. After all, they can’t, themselves, readily move into any key positions in government. Because they can’t speak French. And by the time someone becomes an adult and wants to participate – it’s too late to learn.
There ARE some Quebecers who see the problems clearly, but, few Quebecers will listen to them…and fewer still want to actually grow up and stand on their own feet, away from the well-funded, warm, basement of Mother Canada.
Actually, Canada became official bilingual in the 70s, not the 80s.
You’re missing another VERY important point in your remarks about the civil service. In reading your remarks, the implication is that no one outside of Quebec ever encounters French until they are adults, at which point it is hopeless to apply for a civil service job because it is too late to learn French.
The reality is that Canadians across the country learn French in school. As far as I know, every child takes French all the way through high school. (Of course, we learn Parisian French, not Quebec French, but that is not a major obstacle.) Now, I’m several decades past my school years but when I was in school, we started French in Grade 7 and went through to the end of high school; French was compulsory. I know that in Quebec, francophones likewise study English until the end of high school. Nowadays, it is my understanding that most kids start learning French far earlier than Grade 7 although I don’t know what each province sets as the beginning grade for French. Also, many school boards, even in areas that have very very few francophones, offer French immersion schools where kids get their entire education – science, history, and all the other subjects – in French. Apparently Calgary is particularly strong in French immersion programs and many parents try very hard to get their kids into French immersion programs.
Now, I don’t really know how fluent today’s high school, college, and university graduates are in French. I’ve never seen the civil service language exam either so I don’t know how difficult it is. Still, I have to assume that some reasonable percentage of non-Quebeckers can indeed pass the language exam and hope to be employed by the federal civil service (or the provincial civil service for provinces like Ontario and New Brunswick that are also officially bilingual) even if those people are lifelong anglophones.
The Canadian Charter of Rights, which set up official bilingualism in Canada, was signed into law in 1982.
Taking a language in school, i.e., in particular, reading and writing it, provides no facility in speaking and listening to it. The fact remains, that being able to read, some of, but not all of, the cereal box, provides you with no ability to engage in a work discussion in an office; to read and review government documents; to attend a conference meeting; to answer questions about the economy, transportation, communication and so on. That’s valid whether you are a francophone in Quebec, whose exposure to English is only via the school, or an anglophone in Alberta, whose exposure to French is only via the school.
Canada is not a bilingual country. The majority of citizens do not have an equal or even near equal facility in both languages. Only 20% have that facility; that’s been the ratio before and after 1982. The majority have a facility to use – and I mean use to its communicative extent – only one language.
Why? Because the majority of citizens only hear, use, speak, on a daily basis – one language. If you are a kid in Saskatoon, you aren’t going to hear or use French, and by the time you are 30 and think about entering government service, it’s too late – financially and linguistically and temporally – to become bilingual.
Therefore – over 80% of Canadians are barred from government service and we have set up a civil service run predominantly by Quebecers.
Well, all true but there’s French and then there’s what they talk in most of Quebec. I can watch TV en francais and completely understand a bank commercial or most of the news, for instance, but a beer commercial? Not a chance. I always tell Quebeckers, I’ll try to speak French if you will.
Etab: I wanted to reply to your response to my comments but your reply doesn’t have a reply link so I’m replying to my own remarks. I hope you find them
I understand better what you had in mind with your original remarks now. You didn’t “forget” to mention the amount of French education in the ROC, you just don’t think it is adequate to allow any but a few anglophones with very high French skills to get into the civil service. That’s probably fair. I’ve heard the occasional story but really don’t have enough direct contact with the government hiring process to be able to refute what your saying. You may well be right.
Also, I agree that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms date back to 1982 but I remember that Trudeau had already made declarations about making the country bilingual as far back as the early 70s; that’s what I was referring to. Now, I don’t remember exactly what he said so perhaps the country wasn’t “officially” bilingual until the Charter of Rights and Freedoms but I’m pretty sure that it was at least unofficially bilingual well before 1982.
I also agree that most Canadians are monolingual in practice, aside from immigrants who know one or more languages from their country of origin and learn English or French (or sometimes both) when they come here. In day to day life, the average anglophone disclaims any knowledge of even the most rudimentary French. I expect the average francophone is a little more pragmatic and, while perhaps shunning English as the language of the anglophones, will use his English more readily if it seems likely to save him/her time and hassle. For instance, I’ve had francophones in Quebec offer to speak English to me just to get me to stop mangling their language
When I was younger, I had great hopes that more efforts made towards anglophones speaking French and francophones speaking English might bridge the gaps between francophones and anglophones in this country. At this point though, it feels like Quebec continues to be it’s own separate place with little real connection to the rest of Canada. Frankly, my sense is that both francophones and anglophones prefer it that way.
Brava, ETAB (fellow SDAer!). Bravo, David for writing this column. And thanks, Holdfast, for pointing out the stranglehold Quebec has on the Supreme Court. This is another HUGE problem.
In the 19th century, the British, Christian architects of Canada magnanimously provided iron clad protections for Quebec’s cultural rights, in perpetuity. Not having a crystal ball to know about airplanes and mass immigration, these British, Christian gentlemen failed to provide measures to protect their own culture!
So, in the 20th century, largely via the anti-British reign of Liberal (read, in the USA, Democratic) Pierre Elliot Trudeau, the British, Christian culture—the very culture on which the freedoms of this country are based—was sacrificed on the altar of multiculturalism.
Quebec was exempt. It’s kept its Napoleonic laws, and all of its other cultural rights—like language (while the ROC is held hostage). The Catholic education system—ironically, now reviled by secular Quebec—originally put in place because of the rights of Quebec, is alive and well in the ROC: the “Protestant” school boards were destroyed, as they were the ones expected to assimilate the non-Christian immigrants, who flooded the country in the late 20th century.
IMO, Quebec’s impact on the ROC has been extraordinarily negative. But, as ETAB points out, citizens of the ROC—who pay a huge number of Quebec’s bills, and who also have to absorb the impact of mass immigration, minus the cultural protections guaranteed to Quebec—are disqualified from taking a significant part in the day to day running of the government.
Quebec’s tail wags the Canadian dog—and has for way too long. What a disgraceful scandal.
You forgot the little matter that Francophones (i.e. Quebecers) are guaranteed at least three (of nine) seats on the Supreme Court of Canada – and often these justices have no real understanding of Common Civil Law, and reach absurd conclusions – or just try to jamb their thumbs into the eye of the Federal government (although sometimes that works out OK when Ottawa is over-reaching). And also a guaranteed 24 seats in the Senate (of aprox 102).
“Their main travels are to Florida, where they have set up a mini-Quebec, with their own French newspaper, and where they go for the weather – and don’t mingle with ‘the Americans’.”
Florida? Florida? Have you ever driven along the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey on a Friday? Half the plates are Quebeckers on their way to Wildwood. And it’s been that way since the 1950s at least.
Power in the government? By law, Quebec gets 75 seats, one fourth of the size of parliament.
No, that is NOT true. I remember a provision to that effect in the Referendum of 1992 that was trying to get the Meech Lake Accords adopted but that Referendum failed to pass so that did not become the law of the land. Now, I don’t watch the news every night and it’s possible that someone passed such a law at some later time and I just failed to hear about it but I think that anything that big and controversial would have come to my attention.
And, Quebec has been allowed, for some insane reason, its own federal party – one that the ROC cannot vote for.
While you are right that the Bloc Quebecois only fields candidates in Quebec and therefore the ROC cannot vote for Bloc candidates, it’s not a question of someone “allowing” that to happen. Anyone can start a political party and no party is required to field candidates in areas where it doesn’t feel it can get elected. So the Bloc only runs candidates in Quebec but there is nothing stopping them from running candidates in other provinces. Similarly, there is nothing stopping others from creating parties that operate only in their areas. For instance, the western provinces could create a “Western Separation” party and only run candidates in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia and that wouldn’t break any laws. It might be just as separatist – or more so – than the Bloc Quebecois. And no one would have to “allow” a Western Separation party to be created either.
I’m not trying to dispute the overall thrust of your remarks; I just want to correct the factual error about Quebec getting a guarenteed 25% of the seats in Parliament and to correct the impression that some back room deal has guaranteed the Bloc Quebecois the exclusive right to have a party that operates in one province.
The law fixing a minimum number of seats for Quebec of 75, was the ‘Amalgam formula of 1974′. It is stipulated in the Constitution that no province could lose seats in subsequent seat number evaluations, even if their populations did not match the new formula.
“The new formula fixed the number of seats in Quebec at 75, up from 65, and further prescribed an automatic increase by four seats in Quebec at each subsequent readjustment to take population growth into account.”
With regard to the Bloc, there is no way that they could field candidates in other provinces, because their agenda is to mount francophone candidates to promote a separate Quebec. How could you campaign for that in Alberta? As for your suggestion that each province could have a separate federal party, I hope you see the loss of democratic rights of Canadians if such were to occur.
How and why should a political party, voted in only by citizens of one province, have the right to suggest, write and promote bills that affect citizens in another province….without those same citizens having the option of voting out that political party?
Captain Ned – 90 minutes from Montreal? Whew – that’s right at the border – Stanstead, Newport etc!
The law fixing a minimum number of seats for Quebec of 75, was the ‘Amalgam formula of 1974′….
I must confess that this “Amalgam formula of 1974″ is a new one on me! I simply don’t remember any such thing. I have to assume that it didn’t get much news coverage because I paid a lot of attention to news in those days.
With regard to the Bloc, there is no way that they could field candidates in other provinces, because their agenda is to mount francophone candidates to promote a separate Quebec. How could you campaign for that in Alberta?
You’re absolutely right. I did not mean to imply that it would make sense for the Bloc to campaign outside of Quebec. (Well, maybe francophone regions of New Brunswick or Ontario, if they hoped to incorporate them into a “Greater Quebec” nation at some point….) Obviously, their program would have no appeal to predominantly anglophone areas like Alberta or Southern Ontario.
As for your suggestion that each province could have a separate federal party, I hope you see the loss of democratic rights of Canadians if such were to occur.
Let me stress that the word I used was COULD, not should. There would obviously be many negatives to having a Bloc-equivalent for each province. I was mostly just reacting to the way you phrased your original remarks which seemed to imply that Quebec had received special dispensation to have the Bloc but that other provinces were somehow prohibited from doing the same. Let me hasten to add that this may not be what you meant at all but it is the way I felt people might take it.
How and why should a political party, voted in only by citizens of one province, have the right to suggest, write and promote bills that affect citizens in another province….without those same citizens having the option of voting out that political party?
That is a great question but it opens a huge can of worms. I think I understand your concerns/objections but we could go on for many hours considering the various aspects of your point. Let me answer VERY briefly and just say that I think all the provinces should have the same rights – I do NOT support special rights and privileges for Quebec that the rest of us don’t enjoy – but I do feel that every province should have the ability to secede from Canada if they really feel that is the best way forward for them. Of course, I assume also that any “divorce” will be fair and equitable with the separating province taking on its share of the Canadian debt as well as getting its share of the resources.
This doesn’t feel like the right place to go into any further detail on this though. After all, we are on an American website that is operated for an American audience and few of them really care a lot about Canadian affairs….
I think you would be amazed to find out how many of the denizens of this website are interested in the goings on up north. What we lack in information, we more than make up with lack of information. I am a southern (USA) person and have long thought that the best thing for Canada would be for the French speaking parts of Canada to form a separate state. Good luck you guys. Always wishing you the best.
@ETAB:
Lifelong Vermonter here, just 90 minutes from Montreal. On the upside, my cable network carries CBC and CTV so I get Hockey Night in Canada and Olympics coverage that actually shows sporting events (the loss of the true Hockey Night theme song does not sit well with me). I look forward to this winter’s curling coverage.
Downside? Many. Quebecois are a scourge down here with their ever-so-Gallic “I’m more important than anyone here” crap. They’re functionally unable to understand the simple concept of standing in line and waiting their turn. Their insouciant arrogance is well known here in Vermont and we natives all have stories of run-ins with what we call “Qweebs”. Don’t even get me started on Quebecois truckers.
Politically, I watched Meech Lake blow up on CBC. I watched Charlottetown blow up on CBC. I watched Jacques Parizeau foam at the mouth like a rabid dog, railing at the “immigrants and moneyed interests” when he couldn’t steal enough votes for “Oui”. No, this is one American who fully understands the cancerous relationship between Quebec and the real parts of Canada. In many ways Quebec has never shaken off the pestilential grip of Duplessis. They had a chance after Expo ’67, but then Trudeau showed up and screwed both Quebec and Canada.
Well, then … LET THEM THE HELL GO. Ye Gods! They don’t like you, you’ve no use for them, and you’d both probably make better neighbors than you ever did countrymen (though that’s setting the bar pretty low). Why do some countries have this unholy yen for holding onto unwilling regions with a death grip, even when they don’t actually LIKE OR HAVE ANYTHING BUT ILL-WILL FOR said regions? (Yes, I’m from the South; why do you ask?)
My Great Grandfather was a steam-era tugboat captain from Quebec. Dark and dangerous work on the cold, frozen St Lawrence sea way, not a task for the weak or fearful.
My Grandfather came to America with his family (of 9 children!) as a shipwright in the heart of the Great Depression. And he never wanted for a day’s labor in the darkest days of the New Deal. HE knew he wanted to work, and so he did, HERE, in America. As a ship-builder, iron worker, grave digger, or janitor. Whatever it took to feed 11 people.
My father was 10 or 12 and spoke only French when they arrived. Known as “Frenchie” to everyone in high school, he also loved ships and the sea, and at 16 or 17 joined the Merchant Marine during WW-2.
Off the Normandy coast on D-day, they spent that day trading with smaller landing craft…. pallet loads of ammunition, in exchange for pallet loads of horribly shattered men…the gruesome mathematics of war he never forgot.
When they were finally considered “veterans” in the 1980′s, he never enjoyed any get-togethers with former “Shipmates” because all they ever seemed to talk about was this or that UNION battle, UNION gripe, UNION strike or UNION victory they “fought” after the war. He hated all of that, he considered himself nothing but a wartime sailor, a WW-2 Vet, and he called the rest of them “union-bums”.
He considered them no better than the shiny-suited “neighborhood-goodfellas” who attempted to extort money from the little sundry store he and mom opened after the war. After a few beatings and stabbings (him upon them, for having the nerve to expect “payments” for nothing!) the Guidos decided to leave Frenchie alone. (mom being a Sophia Loren-looking dago-WOP herself was all that kept him alive, they say!)
Dad was a staunch conservative, an independent hard worker who hated unions, commies, slackers, gangsters, crooks and shysters with equal passion.
Always proud of his Canuk toughness and heritage, he was never a fan of the social/political decay of France and Quebec, and suffered a unique melancholy, a mixture of pride and shame, for what was became the place of his birth, and her homeland.
Frenchie, American through and through, was almost ashamed of being a “Frenchie”
Today my son has a beautiful, feminine sounding French middle name.
The same name as my father….
It’s such a shame that we too have to qualify it with a disclaimer…
To distance ourselves from rich and long civilization that has by now become synonymous with weakness, incompetence, deceit, and failure.
Thank-you for writing about your father. He is an amazing man. Upright, responsible, strong and ethical. As a Canadian I am dismayed and very disturbed by the degradation of our country. Quebec just seems to be further down the road to ruin. Our dependence on entitlements have sapped us of self-reliance and determination. Every time a provincial government announes a new “gift” to us the taxpayer, we think only in terms of the benefit to us and not how we are going to be made to pay for it: more taxes and greater dependence. It is becoming difficult to keep an optimistic outlook. And we haven’t even touched upon the scourge of Canada’s so-called Human Rights Tribunals: they are star chambers of iniquity in my book.
As an immigrant I didn’t come to Canada in order to agonize about Quebec. The correct answer to most questions about, or noises from Quebec is “who cares?”
YOU should care. Quebec is a leech and has become a blight.
And guess what Quebec lives on? Federal transfer payments. YOU pay for them, while Quebec gives the West the middle finger.
Think again.
Yes I agree, the transfer payments to Quebec are indeed a pain and they will probably get bigger until Quebec implodes under the weight of its own dirigisme. Then I expect there will be mass emigration from Quebec and it may even consider becoming self sufficient. Either way Quebec will become less of a pain. As for Quebec giving ROC the middle finger, or Quebec bashing Western Canada, or Quebec promising to separate – once again who cares?
Seems no one has yet mentioned the latest appalling efrontery: this weekend 50000 marched in Quebec City demanding the defecit-ridden federal government come up with money for a new professional hockey arena. Quebec City dreams of returning to the NHL and they apparently expect the ROC to help give them an arena first as a bargaining chip with the NHL.
Here in Vancouver, I sometimes listen to Radio Canada – our national state-financed French-language radio and tv (and professional home to many “separatists”). French is of course way down the list of languages spoken in this city full of Asian immigrants but we’re still promoting a dream of a bilingual Canada. I listen because the radio has a music mix I sometimes find somewhat tolerable (and no other station does) and it helps keep up the French I spent school years trying to learn. Anyway, the Radio Canada/CBC Building here has an advertising poster on its Brutalist concrete wall that, I can’t help but feel, tells us something of the Quebecois attitude to life in Canada: “Ici avec vous”.
What’s wrong with the stadium where the old Quebec City team, the Nordiques, played? (I am not a sports fan but even I know that the Nordiques had some kind of building in which they played.) Unless it’s been torn down, wouldn’t it be cheaper to just re-use that building – possibly after renovations – than to build a completely new one?
Aside from that, I object on principle to ANY use of tax money to pay for entertainment facilities – I consider sports to be a form of entertainment just like theatre or opera – not that this principle has any effect on politicians. They are only too agreeable to spend tax money to build entertainment facilities that simply aren’t economically viable. As I understand it, the Olympic Stadium in Montreal STILL isn’t paid for – and it was built for the 1976 Olympics! The Sky Dome in Toronto also got significant tax support. (As I recall, the City of Toronto kicked in 20% of the cost but got only 3% of the revenue, which has to be one of the stupidest deals I’ve ever heard of.)
Henry, according to Wikipedia, the plan is to use the old arena – La Colisee – until a new one gets built, if Quebec is given another NHL team. However, some of the news reports I have seen say the idea is to first build a new arena in order to entice the NHL. Anyway, the thinking is that old arenas just can’t produce the revenue necessary to sustain a modern franchise given the price it will cost someone to own one. Lack of corporate boxes, modern seating and sight lines, catering facilities, etc. Yes, government funding is usual today when building arenas, though I’m not sure if there are any precedents for federal funding of NHL arenas. According to that Wikipedia article, they figure the new arena will cost Quebec 400 million. Here in BC, the provincial government is spending about that much just to put a new roof on the old footbal stadium. The stadium is also used for other events like trade shows, but I still think it’s maybe crazy.
Thanks for filling me in on the background re the Quebec hockey stadium.
I don’t know if you’ve seen it but someone posted a link to Maxime Bernier’s blog elsewhere in the comments for this article and he has said very clearly and forthrightly – astonishing for a politician! – that he is against spending government money on the proposed new hockey stadium, even though it is in Quebec and not too far from his riding and he knows it would be very popular among his constituents. He says that he thinks it’s just going to prompt everyone else to want government money for sports facilities in the THEIR area and that would just cause a vicious circle. I agree with him! He also feels that the immense deficits that have been incurred for the last couple of years simply make it inadvisable to spend tax money on sporting facilities. Again, I agree with him!
Frankly, I’m impressed with his views on this issue. (I don’t know much about his other views; the only time I’d heard of him before was during the scandal a couple of years back when he left confidential documents at his girlfriend’s place and got reamed by the opposition and media and dumped from Cabinet.) I wish ALL of our politicians had such sensible views!
As a former Ontarian now permanently resident in the USA, I cannot recommend trying to do business with any company operating out of the Province of Quebec. They even surpass the workers of my country of birth, Great Britain, as purveyors of a grudge used as an excuse not to provide quick, efficient service. My wife, a former resident of that power house of dynamism, Hong Kong, simply couldn’t comprehend it before experiencing it.
Coffee club culture — raved about in travel magazines and often associated with places like Paris, Montreal, Vienna, San Francisco or Naples — is more often than not a sign of not having enough to do or not wishing to do it in a timely manner.
I hope that the growth of coffee houses on every Toronto street corner is not a portend of bad things to come.
“Where else, I wonder, does one pay a portion of next year’s taxes this year?”
As previously mentioned, this absolutely astonishes me. I literally have tried and failed for the past ten minutes to even comprehend the logistics of this concept. To me, any nation, state, or province must be in default if it has to resort to this thievery to stay afloat. Not near or close to it, but IN DEFAULT.
Where else? Try the USA! The IRS requires prepayment (no interest of course) of taxes or suffer severe penalties if withholding is insufficient. As it turns out, it is marginally less expensive to make quarterly tax payments than to have taxes taken out of every paycheck or sale of stocks/bonds.
Nope. In the US you have to withhold and pay estimated taxes (at least 80% of last year’s total) on THIS year’s income. E.G. I am paying 1040 ES payments for income in 2010 based on my total tax in ’09. I am not paying anything for 2011 until April 15 of ’11.
You have to pay 1040-ES quarterly estimated tax on THIS year’s income, not NEXT year. And your 1040 that you file in April of ’11 is the final summation of your ’10 income in which you either pay the balance or get a refund for your estimated tax overpayment.
There are no IRS provisions demanding you pay estimated tax on ’11 income in ’10 (although that may be changing if $1.5 trillion deficits are the new normal South of the 49th Parallel).
“Where else, I wonder, does one pay a portion of next year’s taxes this year?”
As previously mentioned, this absolutely astonishes me. It sounds to me that Quebec is not heading for trouble, but rather IN DEFAULT.
“…whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” the Declaration goes on to say that in prudance, all other options should be explored. You know what must be done. Free yourselves and let Quebec go its own way. Maybe you should jettison the East all together?
Just to add a historical footnote to your remarks, when the American Revolution began, a small military force under an American general (Benedict Arnold before he turned traitor!) approached Quebec, which had only become a British colony during the French and Indian Wars in 1759, to see if they wanted to join the United States. The leaders of Quebec declined and drove off the small American force.
I can’t help but wonder how North America – and especially Quebec – would look today if Quebec had joined the United States at that time!
Someday the rest of Canada is going to wise up and let Quebec secede. Without the subsidies they get from the rest of Canada, Quebec will swiftly collapse. The rest of Canada will be richer, and they can also stop coddling their own Frenchies, let them go to their paridise in Quebec. Then, after enough years of destitution in Quebec, Canada might let them join up again, but on english speaking Canadas terms, not Quebecs.
Well, if we are as uncivil to each other as we have been, it wouldn’t surprise me if many folks wanted to separate.
The level of vitriol and negativity shocks me. We cease to be able to discuss things civilly.
If someone persistently calls you a jerk on the internet, or on TV, and disparages your viewpoints as if only a moron could have them, why wouldn’t you want to be in another country than such a person?
It’s not just the right wing ranters, it’s the left wing ranters as well.
John, please be specific. What incivility? I hear arguments here being forcefully made, but no name calling.
What statements of fact concern you? What troubles you about people in the ROC, I gather, finally being fed up with being monumentally used? (Generalities are not acceptable. Please state your concern and then make your case, with proof. Thanks.)
Quebec has many political and economic issue but this Anglo-Canadian supports their protection of their (french)language and culture. I share the Quebec mentality that Federal Income Tax is theft. The equalization payments which do not take into account resource income I have a problem with…and also their corrupt/criminal culture….
I don’t have a problem with french on the cereal boxes…
Many find this support of their language and culture odd but think about it…we didn’t protect our language and culture and now I am a stranger in my own land….
Quebec has many political and economic issue but this Anglo-Canadian supports their protection of their (french)language and culture.
Protection — from what? The freedom of the people to choose their own language and culture? Evidently you, like they, fear that if the people were free to choose their own language, French and Quebec culture would disappear as useless.
Cultures and languages do not have rights. Individuals do. Free men mock the language laws, and rightfully so.
I do have a problem with french on the cereal boxes and everything else that I want to buy. I have a huge problem with usually seeing the french side out on shelves & I thoroughly resent having to turn it around to read it. I am undeniably offended by the extra costs involved with placating a bunch of whiners so they can have their language on things purchased by people who don’t speak it. And I loathe the hypocrisy that allows a minority to dictate that we must be infested with the french language everywhere in the ROC but English is not allowed in Quebec.
Every time a new demand or whine or complaint comes out of quebec, or I hear about the parti quebecois I want to vomit.
Now, ask me how I really feel.
Wow, you have described living in Texas with the preponderance of Spanish-language EVERYTHING to a T.
Jeezum crow, I live in northern NY and see enough PQ plates at the malls and hospitals I forget where I am. For the Quebecois who are dis-satisfied follow Horace Greeleys advice – go west, please go west, unless your from Herouxville, then please come to the US and run for office, you don’t even need a birth certificate anymore..
I’m a French Canadian, born and raised in Québec. While I agree with most of what is in the article, some of the comments are completely ridiculous.
Do not forget that the majority of Québécois are not separatists; in fact, separatists make up less than 40% of the population. However, they are very left-wing, and like lefties everywhere, they are very vocal; as in every democracy, the squeaky wheel gets the oil…
Personally, I serve in the Armed Forces, in a francophone Regiment, which is part of a Francophone Brigade. I am about to deploy to Afghanistan for the second time, like many of my friends… I am doing this on behalf of Canada, not a political party, not an ideology, not a particular person. But it saddens me to read that some consider me “not Canadian” because a portion of the people in my province are idiots.
About Western Canada, do not forget that before oil was discovered, Central Canada (Ontario and Québec) supported the Western provinces financially.
Now going back to idiots, some of the comments prove that Québec does not have a monopoly on them !!
Jim, you make a VERY good point! Frankly, most of the fault for this misunderstanding is the media. Until I started actually working with Quebeckers, I truly thought that almost all of them were separatists: that’s the only type of Quebeckers we heard about in the media!
In the 60s, we heard about separatists blowing up mailboxes. We lived through the FLQ crisis – the Cross/Laporte kidnappings (and Laporte’s murder) – and saw martial law invoked for the first time ever during peacetime. We endured the 1980 Referendum but, even though the separatists lost, we were told it was mostly because of trickery on Trudeau’s part, not any great enthusiasm for Canada from Quebeckers. We endured the 1995 Referendum and came within a percentage point of seeing Quebec leave the country (although, if the votes had been counted more honestly, we might have had a slightly less frightening result.) And so on.
Basically, we rarely if ever see Canadians that are NOT separatists in the news! Naturally, this makes it difficult for people outside of Quebec to realize that many Quebeckers want to stay in Canada and have no enthusiasm for separation.
Thank you for reminding us all that the majority of Quebeckers are NOT separatists! And good luck on your tour in Afghanistan!
Thank you for your service, Jim. And thank your mates in the Van Doos, en francais, s’il vous plait. Give the rag heads the sharp end, OK?
Thanks for the comments, Henry Reardon and Former Anglo Canuck; we will do our best !!
In Quebec’s defense, I don’t think there’s much of a causal relationship between Quebec poor position and its leftist policies.
You accuse Quebec (rightly so) of these things… economic suicide, voting fraud, corruption, forcing businesses to operate in French, stealing money from the rest of Canada, etc, but the message you want all of us to take home is that Quebec also happens to be the most socialist province in Canada and therefore socialism is bad. But why does Quebec suffer from these problems? Separatism. They caused 50% of all anglophones to flee the province between 1980 and 2001. They caused all the big businesses to take their money to Toronto. Montreal was the Canadian New York City before 1980! Now the city is stagnant. Our crappy parliamentary system and municipal party politics has a lot more to do with politicians’ ability to be corrupt and wasteful than socialism. Quebec doesn’t demand equalization payments because they’re socialist, they demand equalization payments because the politicians are whiny selfish bastards who want special treatment and have the political clout to back it up.
Perhaps socialism is bad–I certainly don’t want Quebec to go any further to the left than it already is–and perhaps I’m going to leave this province at the earliest chance I get, but you can’t say that Quebec is a failure because of socialism and use that as an argument for America to avoid socialism. Quebec’s failures are just as much, if not far more, due to separatism.
If you wish to live in a prosperous Quebec, start advocating for the repeal of Bill 101.
Didn’t the Cree Indians, who control most of Northern Quebec, threaten to secede from a free Quebec and rejoin Canada? If so, then the hydroelectric power would be out of French hands, would it not?
What would Quebec export then? Asbestos?
You’re right, the Cree Indians did say that if Quebec could separate from Canada, they felt that they could separate from Quebec. But Quebec politicians disagreed and talked about how the geographical integrity of Quebec was inviolate, which of course, is the obvious position for them to take.
Morally, the Cree argument is completely reasonable. But these things don’t get decided on the basis of morality or logic. Quebec would naturally resist the Cree separating from Quebec. Would they use force to keep the Cree within Quebec? Who knows. Quebec hasn’t separated yet so it doesn’t have it’s own separate military yet. With any luck at all, Quebec never WILL separate and this issue will not arise.
The big question is what the federal government would do if Quebec separated. A lesser question is whether the federal government would support efforts by the Cree or other segments of the Quebec population to stay within Canada. The separatists very much want to hold on to ALL of Quebec and some want to take back Labrador, which they ceded to Newfoundland in 1949 to entice it to join the country. Some separatists want to invite northern Ontario and at least parts of New Brunswick to join a sovereign Quebec. Naturally, Ontario, Newfoundland, and New Brunswick will have something to say about all of that!
How will it all turn out? Only time will tell….
It’s very hard to predict what the main exports of Quebec will be until the dust settles from a separation. I doubt that asbestos will be a major export though. After all, we know the health risks associated with asbestos as well as you do
You should know that Quebec has a number of modern industries, including a significant aerospace sector. Bombardier, which started out making snowmobiles, moved into building aircraft and subway trains. If I’m not mistaken, many of the subway trains in the New York Subway were made by Bombardies in Quebec….
Henry, it isn’t just a matter of morality but legality. The federal government, by law, is obliged to protect the status indigeneous peoples. That is, natives are the legal responsibility of the federal not provincial government.
As such, the federal government would be obliged by law to protect the right of the Cree to maintain their lands. No province has jurisdiction over native affairs. Therefore, Quebec could not, legally, suddenly declare that it, not the federal government, had jurisdiction over the lands and status of the native people in Quebec.
It’s not, therefore, a political issue, decided by whim or taste, but a very serious legal issue.
You’re right, ETAB: it is also a legal issue, not just a moral issue. But how would the legal obligation to protect the aboriginals actually play out? Does the legislation require unequivocally that Ottawa protects the territorial integrity of the aboriginal lands? Or does the wording of the legislation just contain platitudes about protecting the aboriginal people? In the latter case, perhaps Ottawa would simply resettle the aboriginals outside of the borders of Quebec and declare that this all that was required. That wouldn’t make the aboriginals happy and many would see that as Ottawa caving in to Quebec but many would probably welcome it as a better alternative than a civil war over Quebec secession.
For all the griping we do about Quebec – and which they surely do about the ROC – I don’t think very many people on either side would actually want a civil war to settle the final shape of a sovereign Quebec.
Henry – it’s a legal fact. All indigeneous peoples come under the jurisdiction of the federal govt. Check the Constitution.Section 35 titled aboriginal rights. These include rights of fishing, hunting, land title etc – and – treaty rights. So it’s not platitudes; it’s in the Constitution. No province has the right to infringe on these aboriginal rights and the federal govt must, by law, protect their rights and the integrity of their land.
What “force” could Quebec use to keep the Cree in their country if the Cree wanted to leave?
A nascent Quebec would not yet have an army, and I doubt the Canadian Army would just let its French troops go only to have them fighting Anglo forces over this territory. They would likely have to confine them to barracks.
What force would a nascent Quebec use to keep the Cree within Quebec?
Your guess is as good as mine, Eric! I don’t doubt that the inner circle of the Parti Quebecois has at least given some thought to how the separation of Quebec would take place but any plans they have are surely kept as a closely-guarded secret. It would be political dynamite for them to publish anything like that. It really all depends on how the separation took place. As I understand it, the official plan is for the Quebec government to negotiate the exact terms of separation with the Canadian government. I believe this is time-limited to one year to prevent this from being dragged out over decades! If Canada accepted the results of the separation referendum as being a fair representation of the will of a majority of Quebeckers – and maybe more than a simple 50% majority! – the “divorce” might succeed in amicably dividing all the assets, debts, etc. and the “settlement” might see the francophone portions of the Canadian Forces become the core of the military for the new nation of Quebec. But if the referendum is NOT accepted by the ROC (Rest of Canada) due to allegations of vote-rigging or whatever and if there were armed skirmishes as groups within Quebec tried to secede from Quebec, then almost anything could happen, including civil war.
If the francophone portions of the Canadian Forces obeyed an order to stay in baracks – and who knows if they would under those circumstances? – the Quebec government would still have the use of the SQ (Surete Quebec – roughly equivalent to the State Police in an American state) to try to keep breakaway Cree (or other aboriginals) from seceding from Quebec. I don’t imagine many SQ members have much idea about how to function as an army though and I don’t imagine they would have any experience with anything more than small arms. Then again, I don’t imagine the Cree would have much experience with anything but small arms either. So any clash might not amount to much. But who knows? If the “resistance” failed to end quickly, perhaps the Cree would form bonds with foreign countries and acquire heavier weapons and the training to use them and then anything could happen.
In any case, I think it is safe to say that ALL Canadians would be very reluctant to use violence to settle any questions raised by a hypothetical separation of Quebec from Canada. For all the griping you hear from both sides, I think even the most anti-Quebec anglophones or anti-ROC francophones would much rather have the divorce take place in courts or in legislatures than to descend into civil war.
Maple syrup and poutines!
Quebec is like a shard of 1930′s European fascism in North America, untouched by the decades or the Second World War. As such it retains many characteristics of that benighted era; there is the longing for a strongman (Duplessis), the obsession with race (a href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pure_laine”>Pure laine), and the usual anticapitalist paranoias.
After the 1995 referendum, Jacques Parizeau infamously blamed the “No” victory on “the wealthy and the ethnic vote”, packing the anticapitalism and crude racism into one remark. Parizeau’s little rant caught a large number of Toronto lefties off guard, just days after NOW magazine (a leftist “entertainment” tabloid that made their American counterparts look positively Goldwaterish by comparison) had run a puff piece about all the socialist goodies to be expected from a newly independent, Leftist Quebec.
I left…….
In 1970.
Perhaps socialism is bad–I certainly don’t want Quebec to go any further to the left than it already is–and perhaps I’m going to leave this province at the earliest chance I get, but you can’t say that Quebec is a failure because of socialism and use that as an argument for America to avoid socialism. Quebec’s failures are just as much, if not far more, due to separatism.
You act as if Quebec separatism and socialism were unrelated.
The Quebec separatist movement hurts Quebec because it is essentially socialist. Separatism is the distraction they use to exploit the culture of Quebec, in much the same fashion that anti-Semitism served as the distraction for the National Socialists in Germany.
If the separatists sought to escape the relative socialism of Canada in favor of greater liberty (capitalism), not only would it eventually become an economic powerhouse, but I would move there.
Nice try, but we are not idiots here.
CHANGE PERSPECTIVE! Why do we keep looking at government to control their finances when we don’t even demand they account for the monies they redistribute. Pre-paying taxes for the next years is just the tip of the iceberg. If you get hit with W-2′s for sweating for dollars, or 1099-MISC (or whatever the Canadian equivalents are) why don’t the recipients of redistributed dollars get the same kind of reporting? 1099-GOV I think. If government takes money, christens it “income, redistributed” it is still income and should be subject to reporting. IRS Form 1099-GOV. You would no longer have to argue about expenditures as Britain is learning because you canNOT have people on the dole making more than working men and women for long. It is just WRONG! It leads to a revolution to free men from the yoke of government. Duh.
How about turning the tables on them. Get a referendum going in the rest of Canada to vote on giving Quebec the heave ho.
The US should do the same on Puerto Rico status.
I would rather live in Quebec, where at least they care about their people, their language, and their culture, than under Bush, who shredded the Constitution for sport, and spent 8 years in office starting two illegal wars to make his pals on Wall Street, at Big Oil, and at Haliburton rich. I thought seriously about moving to Canada but for Bush but I could not find a job because of what Bush did to the entire economy of North America and they would have canceled my unemployment if I had left the country.
Vinny, bravo! Pitch-perfect! And to think I almost made it to the end of the comments without an out-of-left-field Bush remark…
Vinnie, you forgot your /sarc tag.
Au Revoir Vinny!
David, that is the past. The present belongs to Maxime Bernier (because his detractors are reacting to him), and he will carry the future.
Why? Because he shines the light on myths.
For example, solving the Middle east will stem from solving the Israeli/Palestinian Problem. Well, there is a problem with that. Namely this: http://gerryporter.blogspot.com/2010/09/palestine-myth.html
The problems that Quebec has will not be solved by the mind numbing propaganda who have something to gain from tensions between Quebec and the other 9 provinces, and territories. I thought that “Fighting for Canada” by Diane Francis would be accorded more acceptance by you.
So, given the credibility deficit of the establishments (for those who are familiar with Canadian history, I refer to the Family Compact and the Chateau Clique. For they have lasted into the 21st century. People have replaced, but the battle remains the same: “It is the eternal struggle between these two principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You toil and work and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.” – Abraham Lincoln) the days are running out for them to continue to call the shots. For, they are the reactionaries.
Australia shares Canada’s producing state (province) / consuming state situation, which is not surprising, as our economies are both mining dependent. There is certainly tension between those areas which produce a surplus, and those areas which are given the aforementioned surplus! Fortunately, this does not reflect an ethnic divide in the nation, and so things are never very heated.
What is really funny about Quebec is their insistence upon being French – whereas the French see them as provincials who speak a funny kind or antique French. I can sympathise with the desire for a linguistic minority to retain their ancestral language, but the French in France have pretty much stomped out the many regional languages there; very few young people speak Breton or Languedoc, for example. The French cheerfully say “le week-end”, whereas the Quebecois say “la fin de la semaine” in order to avoid an English loan word. Let’s not go in to the difference between French and Quebecois food… In summary, the Quebecois are not French at all – they are descended from the French, and still speak a French dialect. Good luck to them; I have spent an awful lot of effort learning French, it’s a wonderful language and the culture has a lot that is admirable about it – despite the love / hate relationship that goes back to the Hundred Years War – but their relationship with their fellow citizens is clearly strained, and that’s not just a problem for the ROC!
In the past, the only 3 things I thought Quebec was good for ( not counting it’s ability to insult & inflame the rest of Canada , suck up more than it’s fair share of our hard earned tax dollars and whine about it’s status & special privilege) was Cirque de Soleil, Just for Laughs & the burka ban, and I was hard pressed to find those. Now I can add one more, David Solway.
Excellent article. Thank you!
Parti Québécois, whose motto likely is: If at first you don’t secede, try and try again; … has vowed to conduct future referenda until it gets the answer it wants ….
But when it gets it and Canada as the consequence then takes back all of the territories that were previously part of other provinces or were federal lands and that are currently considered to be part of a Quebec within Canada and/or are by any means under Québécois jurisdiction?
Civil war will erupt and the post-the-traitor, Trudeau, country you have when you are no longer having a country will no longer exist!
I’m an Anglo in East-End Montreal and speak some French.My brother is mentally handicapped and gets taxied to and from day-care four days a week.He gets bathed and shaved by gorgeous French girls four times a week. I’ve lived in Oshawa,Toronto,Kingston,Salluit(Northern Quebec),Calgary and Edmonton.
The CIBC bank up the street is now Muslim owned.You can’t go anywhere in this city without seeing women in headscarves or veils. The PQ wanted the immigrant vote for separation,now we’re stuck with a whole bunch of freeloaders who can’t integrate,a la Dearborn,Michigan.There are no decent jobs here. I’ll be going back to Calgary soon. Coupla questions tho..
How much does NY pay Quebec for Hydro?
How much does the U.S. pay for Alberta AND Saskatchewan oil? Newfoundland oil? BC timber?
Perhaps they could pay more..Alot more..
Alot of the kids working at Banff Nat’l Park were French..Either Quebecers(no k in Quebec right?)or New Brunswickers? New Brunswick is more bilingual than Quebec.
In fact, New Brunswick is the only province that is officially bi-lingual, which simply means that provincial services are offered in both languages. There are also some municipalities in Manitoba that are bilingual. There are two large sectors in the City of Winnipeg that are French – St. Boniface and St. Vital.
Vive le Québec libre!
What a nice convergence of Quebec-basher, angryphones and anglo-supremacists !
Quebec has it’s problems, just like any other province or state. Debt is really high but deficits are shrinking and not expanding like in the US.
Taxes are somewhat higher that it’s north american counterparts but that’s mainly true for top earners. In the other hand, crime is low, income inequality is the lowest in the continent and quality of life is amongst the best in the world according to UN, Mercer and many other respected indexes.
Last economic crises barely affected Quebec and unemployment is lower today than the Canadian or American national averages. With a stronger social safety net, I might add.
Finally, Quebec is a progressive and liberal haven in Tea-Party-Xenophobic-Homophobic-Conservative-WASP-Jesusfreak leaning North America, which is basically why some you don’t like us.
So, next referendum, please don’t flood Montreal with people asking Quebec to stay in the Confederation is you dislike us so much. To me Canada is like a bipolar-borderline girlfriend, she hates you but she doesn’t want to let you go.
Cheers,
A proud néo-québécois (immigrant to Québec)
The next time your idiot separatists run another referendum, the ROC will do the same…
Your corrupt Province is eating itself alive right now… Most corrupt jurisdiction in Canada, probably North America…
“income inequality is the lowest in the continent and quality of life is amongst the best in the world according to UN, Mercer and many other respected indexes.”
Deficit spending and transfer payments won’t last forever… Change is coming, you will have to pay your own way or you will be out of Canada by the ROC’s choice…
Miguel’s obviously not paying attention. (But what would one expect from an inmate of La-La Land?)
As Quebec lives off the avails of the ROC, while displaying Gallic arrogance and no appreciation at all, he might have noticed that many of us are quite comfortable with the idea of Quebec striking out on its own. When the ROC’s money dries up and the federal debt it owes is called in, that will be the end of the party.
Wake up, Miguel!
Miguel – I suggest you try to focus on facts rather than fiction.
The Quebec debt is increasing not decreasing.
No, taxes are higher for all levels of income not just ‘top earners’. Taxes on everything, including gas, education, housing as well as income are higher in Quebec.
Crime? It’s not low! What is low is prosecuting it. The black market economy is the highest in Quebec. People rip off the government to avoid those taxes. Drugs and gangs are a mainstay in Quebec.
Economic crisis don’t affect Quebec? What an ignorant statement. The fact is, that Quebec can’t provide jobs and therefore, a majority of youth leave the province; they are working elsewhere in Canada – in Ontario, Alberta, BC. Don’t you know that? There are NO jobs in Quebec!
Income ‘inequality’ is the norm because the top producers and entrepreneurs have left the province. Therefore, most people in Quebec are at the same level – lower middle class. The top earners are found only in the bloated government bureaucracy – both provincial and, due to federal largesse, the many federal govt offices located in Quebec. These latter are to give work to Quebecers. Without these federal public service jobs in Quebec – there’d be little work for Quebecers.
Furthermore, Quebec relies on the federal handover of enormous subsidies to Quebec to ‘smooth out’ the reality that it has no jobs, is not building a robust economic infrastructure. So, ‘make-work’ projects are the norm in Quebec, funded by the federal government, i.e., the Canadian taxpayer. These include everything from forestry, mining, the dairy industry, road construction, universities…Bombardier…all funded, not by the private market system…but by the federal government. How’s that for a self-sufficient economy?
Your ‘social safety net’ is also operative due to the federal largesse, i.e, the Canadian taxpayer.
Quebec is unable to be self-sufficient as an economy. It is, despite its size and resources, a ‘have-not’ province and must be propped up by the ROC.
Its hostility to anglophones, to anyone not ‘pur laine’, to Americans, to Canadians – is well known. Its narrow, self-absorbed perspective, focused only on francophones, is also well-known.
There are a number of Quebecers who have been trying to move Quebecers out of this isolation, self-absorption and economic dependency (see the Bouchard et al Manifesto of 2005)…but Quebecers reject ‘outsiders’…and the truth.
Here’s a devastating critique of the Quebec economic reality.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=M1ARTM0013039
It refers to the fact that GDP is 20% less than that of Ontario; that only 44% hold a regular full-time job; the low labour productivity with the highest national average of absenteeism (no work ethic; your govt will pay you anyway); the enormous cost of the subsidies, the day care, the lowest university tuition – which is available at the same low cost to any francophone student in the world; its hostility to entrepreneurship; its embedded sluggishness by virtue of the stranglehold of the unions; the cost of the mammoth civil service (roughly twice per capita of that of Ontario); the fact that foreign investors are shying away from this albatross; the exodus of young people…..
Quebec is propped up, economically, by the ROC. Now, why should we do this?
As an Albertan, who has funded the lunacy in Quebec for more than 20 years, I would like to say to Quebecers planning their next referendum “Leave, and don’t let the door hit you on the derriere on the way out.” Western Canada will certainly be better off without this festering boil on our backside. Quebec drains $1 billion a year out of Alberta alone. Au revoir, I say.
Moi aussi, Rodeodoc!
(Et, Miguel, où êtes-vous?)
Re the status and future of Quebec vis a vis the ROC, I strongly recommend a very recent book (Key Porter Books, 2009), by Brian Lee Crowley. The book’s title: “fearful symmetry: the fall and rise of canada’s founding values”. (NB the order of the words, “fall and rise”: as the values of the architects of the Dominion of Canada—those British, Christian gentlemen—are very similar to those of the Tea Party movement, this is very encouraging, indeed.)
The penultimate chapter of “fearful symmetry: the fall and rise of canada’s founding values” is entitled, “Quebec’s Power in Canada: High Tide and After”, and the author of the book, “Time to Say Good-bye: Building a Better Canada Without Quebec”, Reed Scowen, is quoted: “After a century of political tutoring, the francophone population of Quebec understands intuitively that its surest power lies in the negotiating process itself, the menace of separation combined with the demand for special status, to increasingly enlarge the political autonomy of the Quebec government, and reduce that of Ottawa. Quebec has no interest in finding an angle of repose in this struggle.”
The Quebecois socialists, who run the show in that province—and have, forever, it seems, run circles around the ROC—are very similar to the One Nation crew: both groups hate the generous and, for them, sustaining, nation in which they find themselves, while expecting—no, DEMANDING—the largesse that it provides. Both groups are arrogant, selfish, ungrateful, corrupt extortionists.
Enough is enough. Finally, ordinary citizens in both Canada and the USA are willing to be labelled bigots and racists when saying, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore”. (Well, Americans are much better at that than we are, but we’re beginning to catch on.)
What does it take for Maxime Bernier to receive thoughtful analysis of what he says, rather than, he is from Quebec, therefore he is to be ignored.
I challenge anyone to take a look at his blog, http://www.maximebernier.com and then come back and say reading it was a waste of time.
Honestly people, especially those who conclude that nothing good can come from Quebec, do all of us a favour and apply an objective measuring stick to the contents of his blog.
For what it’s worth, I joined the Reform Party of Canada in July, 1990.
There’s no English on Mr. Bernier’s website – yet. There’s an option to switch to English, but nothing there when you do.
Living in the West for most of my 35 years I’ve visited BC, Vancouver Island often for camping, rafting. Wonderful place.
Now living on the East Coast I had my first brush with Quebec recently. I’d taken French for 5 + years in H.S. and college and use it every so often for work. What I noticed while there is hardly ANYONE uses French, yet the French signage is everywhere.
Unfortunately, the ‘friendliness factor’ is night and day of BC and Quebec.
As for a commenter saying the transition to Universal health Care went ‘smoothly’ – please take into consideration the population differences amongst our nations. Not to mention Canada’s Health Services President (I can’t recall the exact title) said a year or so ago that Canada’s health care system is holding on by a thread, day-to-day. ‘Oh joy’ for our future..!
I lived in Quebec until 1987.In 2010 over 8 billion was given in transfer payments to Quebec.These are called equalization payments from the “have” provinces to the “havenot” provinces.This is the highest out of ANY province in Canada.The next highest is Manitoba at 1.8 billion.
And people say theres nothing to fear of socialism.What the hell do you call Quebec then?A utopia?Just what America needs,a population paid by the govt who at anytime it decides can cut you off if you dont agree with them.Not a way i would live thats for sure.
‘Lots of traffic here for a Canadian issue! How about some more?
(E.g., I’d love to see more Barbara Kay.)
No, it’s time for a Tea Party!
I wish!
Its like you read my thoughts! You seem to know a lot about this, such as you wrote the e book in it or something. I think that you simply can do with a few % to force the message home a little bit, but instead of that, that is wonderful blog. An excellent read. I will definitely be back.