It was an event that every Canadian and Quebecer should be proud of, the maiden flight of Bombardier's new passenger jet, the CS100.
Now Canadians have invested upwards of $350 million in the project and have a vested interest in its success. The jet will consolidate Bombardier's position as the third largest producer of commercial passenger aircraft in the world.
Yup, Bombardier stands third, behind Boeing and Airbus. I bet most Canadians didn't know that because success stories don't make the news.
Aside from airplanes, Bombardier is a giant in the world train business as well. Good for them, good for us.
The new jet is more fuel efficient and quieter than anything in its class and has a two year lead on the field.
While many clients took a wait and see attitude, the successful maiden flight will (cross your fingers)
hopefully trigger an avalanche of orders.
If Toronto's Billy Bishop airport is permitted a runway extension, the CS100 is the logical choice of Porter Airlines and with that, Air Canada should not be far behind.
Why should you care about the long term success of the CS100? Because it is a vehicle of wealth creation, something this province is in dire need of.
Thousands of high paying jobs, plus the ripple effect through sub-contractors and support industry that creates the wealth to finance the rest of the nanny state.Too many Quebecers are divorced from the notion that in order to spend money, one has to make money.
Having an airplane factory with thousands of workers in Mirabel will give a needed shot in the arm to our economy, but it doesn't seem to be a big deal, the newspapers would rather devote their resources on the tiresome Charter of Chicane, because that is what interests Quebecers or the media at least.
It is also what obsesses the PQ and while it would be easy to say that the PQ is using the Charter to distract Quebecers from the moribund economy, the truth is even sadder than that.
The PQ is not trying to deflect attention away from the economy, it just has different priorities, where language, culture and independence trump economic prosperity by far.
The same with immigration, where language trumps quality.
The PQ obsession with sovereignty, language and culture is its raison d'etre and sadly, it is the fault of the ROC for financing this dangerous and unrealistic fantasy.
Therapists tell us that every serious drug addict has to crash and burn before he or she can ever begin to recover and enablers do more harm than good. Junkies whose loved ones cover up and finance the addiction are actually delaying the inevitable. So to is Canada financing Quebec's money addicted flirtation with independence, only delaying the inevitable meltdown.
Even though Quebec has sunk economically and fallen from being one of the richest provinces to one of the poorest, it hasn't sunk to the bottom and isn't yet prepared to face the monkey on its back.
But readers, the day of reckoning will soon be upon Quebec.
There was a time that Quebec banked on the limitless reservoirs of hydroelectricity to power its economy, but that ship has sailed.
The demand for Quebec electricity has plummeted due to conservation and shale gas power generating stations in the USA.
While spanking new generating plants are mothballed by Hydro-Quebec because of low demand, the PQ has extended new contracts for wind generating power that cost almost double what the idle plants can produce.
It's like ordering more pizza at the restaurant, when the table is piled high with uneaten pies, under the rational that the cook needs the work.
The shock of the hydroelectricity meltdown has the government reeling, with absolutely no plan for economic recovery.
Taking stock of the situation, a prudent government would look at all aspects of wealth creation and conclude, even reluctantly, that resource development is the only feasible plan to follow.
But resource development has a foul connotation in Quebec, as if despoiling the Earth of its treasures is dishonest and destructive.
While all of North America is cashing in on the shale gas boom, it is of course too dirty and dangerous for haughty Quebecers.
The same with oil development, where a test well in the desperately poor Gaspe was stopped because the locals didn't like the idea of polluting their pristine welfare financed Shangrila.
It is reported that the uninhabited Anticosti Island is a reservoir of gazillions of barrels of oil, but at the rate the environmental studies take to complete, oil will no longer be a factor and we'll all be driving cars equipped with warp drive engines powered by dilithium crystals.
A Montreal newspaper is reporting that the Plan Nord, Jean Charest's dream to open Northern Quebec to resource development is dead.
"Of the 11 major mining projects announced above the 49th parallel, the total value of tens of billions of dollars, more than half are now under review or have undergone major negative revisions , according to data compiled by our Bureau investigation.
Projects have altogether been abandoned . Mineral exploration, which is the essential step for launching projects, suffered a sharp decline in the territory covered by the Plan Nord (which excludes the Abitibi-Témiscamingue).
The project to make the infrastructure more accessible in the Far North, (pipeline, rail, roads) has been put on ice.
"The slowdown is significant," says Normand Champigny, President of Minalliance, a group of mining companies.
Lower metal prices, multiple draft revisions to the mining law in recent years, increased mining royalties, difficulty in obtaining financing, all of which have contributed to deflate the enthusiasm of mines for two years, according to M. Champigny. Link{fr}
All of this is of no never mind to the PQ, because the very essence of resource development goes against the grain of Quebecers and as long as Ottawa pays, why get off the couch?
The opposition, hasn't really anything to offer.
Francois Legault, the head of the CAQ is proposing creating a 'Silicon Valley' in Laval, another idiotic pipe dream.
As for recruiting the engineers and scientists to fill the job vacancies, the PQ would have to hand out a boatload of OQLF waivers, because the 'Valle de silicone' would have to operate in English.
Let us remember that CS100 was developed in Quebec but in ENGLISH, with the grudging endorsement of the OQLF.
Also remember the video game industry which was established in Montreal with the OQLF blessing operates in English with the further encouragement of millions in Quebec government subsidies.
That is the Quebec reality, in order to attract worldwide business, OQLF waivers and government subsidies are the order of the day.
Quebec gives up three times as much revenue by way of direct subsidies or tax breaks than does Ontario, almost four billion dollars more.
As for the economy, there is no PQ plan because it is frankly out of options.
It won't open up the resource sector and Quebec can't really compete in anything else.
Bombardier, CGI and SNC-Lavalin are perhaps the exceptions that prove the rule that Quebec cannot compete worldwide.
But let us also remember that these companies are essentially English, wrapped up in a thin veneer of French.
And so for Marois and the PQ the economy is irrelevant, unfixable and as long as the suckers across the Ottawa river and points beyond pay to keep the separatist habit going, well...who really can blame them?
