PQ Faces Disastrous 2014

When the PQ was first elected last year, I wrote a couple of pieces describing how grossly under-qualified I believed the Marois cabinet was. I'm sure some wrote off my missives as the rantings of a disgruntled angryphone, strumming on the harp of discord and finding fault, no matter what.

But it's not really the case.
In the past we've had PQ governments that were largely competent or at least as competent as any Liberal government (which isn't saying much.) The fact that they were sovereigntist was largely beside the point.

It's hard to compare the likes of René Levesque, Pierre-Marc Johnson, Lucien Bouchard and even Bernard Landry and Jacques Parizeau and their governments, to that of Pauline Marois and her merry band of incompetents.
It's not a case of comparing apples to oranges, but rather a case of comparing dollars to donuts.

I know I'll catch a lot of crap for saying that in my estimation the above-mentioned gentlemen towered over Despicable She in so many ways that to compare her intelligence, political savvyiness and sense of public duty with them, an exercise in futility.

All these ex-Premiers were ardent separatists, but never forgot that they were the Premier of ALL Quebecers and always strived to be as inclusive as they could and never singled out the Anglos or Ethnics in order to practice the wedge politics of division.
When Parizeau slipped up and in the heat of the moment whilst in the cups and made some injudicious statements after the referendum, he did the honourable thing and resigned.
Could you imagine under which circumstances la Pauline would resign over an ethical question? NEVER!
I remain convinced that Parizeau wasn't a racist or language supremacist nor any of the other Premiers, who all shared the common trait of being highly intelligent and socially and politically responsible.

But Pauline is different.
A racist, supremacist, ethno-centrist, or a virulent and uncompromising separatist?

Nope, she is none of the above...she is worse.

Pauline has no idea and no ideology other than the preservation and advancement of herself as Premier.
Power for power's sake and damn the consequences (and there are plenty of negative consequences!)

She reminds me of those current world leaders who would rather see their country go down the tube, rather than give up power. There's at least half a dozen idiots, running their respective countries into the ground that I think can of, off the top of my head.
I won't mention those leaders here, I'll leave that up to the readers to do so in the comments section, because  if I compare her mentality to that of those destructive megalomaniacs, it will be misconstrued as the ranting of a angryphone à la Galganov.

The other day I caught a show with one of my favourite political commentators, Jean Lapierre, a straight shooter, who has the political experience as an ex-Liberal party cabinet minister and Paul Martin's Quebec lieutenant, to back up his observations with authority.
He told his interviewer that its time to dump the sad sack minister of the Environment, Martine Ouellet who has as he claimed demonstrated herself to be incredibly inept.

Now I've told you way back when that despite her education, she seems to be completely lost in the real world, someone who may be book smart, but woefully asea..

For those who haven't seen this clip of her floundering badly in an interview with a Radio-Canada reporter, who is visibly stunned at the minister's lack of comprehension, give a look.
In this clip, the minister fails to understand what a loan guarantee is, as the polite, but incredulous reporter, gently tries to explain exactly what it is, to Quebec's very own version of James Hacker.

Let me make it simple for our idiot minister.

Imagine your brother going to the bank for a car loan and being told that if he could get you to guarantee the loan, (because he hasn't got good credit and you do,) he'd be eligible for a reduced interest rate, saving him $900 in interest over the term of the loan.
And so you, being a good sister, sign the loan guarantee, understanding that you'll only be liable to pay, in the case of default.
If your brother makes good on all the payments in a timely manner, it costs you nothing.......

Somehow, Madame Ouellet figures that the $900 in interest that your brother saved, is coming out of your pocket. She repeats that notion several times! I'm surprised the interviewer didn't break out laughing.
And this is the idiot charged with developing policy for the future of Quebec's resource industry. 

She is but an example of the team of lightweights in the Marois cabinet, all punching above their weight.
From the Minister of Revenue who can't do addition and subtraction and resorts to a number of 'oopsys' to explain his miscalculations,  to the the Family Minister who would rather create new daycare slots when empty ones already exist within the system, to Pauline herself who insists on investing in costly new wind power electricity projects when Quebec is sitting on a surplus of electricity and perfectly good  power plants, mothballed because of over-capacity.

But aside from this crisis in leadership and competence, the PQ government is also facing deteriorating market and employment conditions, an aging population as well as an approaching debt ceiling and a finite tax base, the confluence of negative conditions, the harbinger of  an economic Perfect Storm.

Now in a rare moment of lucidity, the finance minister, Nicholas Marceau has told us that he cannot raise taxes any higher, admitting that there is just no more room to gouge Quebecers further without affecting Quebec's competitive position.
There is already a 10 cent difference in the price of gas between Montreal and Toronto, and so how much higher can the gap be raised before the rules of economics kick in?
Provincial sales tax just jumped to almost 10% and the health tax brought in by Charest hasn't been repealed, a promise made by Pauline during the last provincial election campaign.

Aside from that, homeowners were targeted by massive increases in school taxes, a result of Marois cutting the educational budgets and telling the school boards to tax the difference back directly.
After that fiasco and the public outrage that ensued over the increases, Marois demanded that the school boards give the money back, but never explained how to make up the shortfall.
How's that for improvisation!

In fact, since 2010, the government has added over 5 billion in new taxes, yet still cannot balance the budget.
Quebec's  $2.5 billion deficit this year would have almost doubled if not for an extraordinary $2.2 billion payment made by Ottawa in relation to the harmonization of sales tax, but that won't happen again next year.

To make matters worse, the bottom has fallen out of the electricity market, ironically because of the Americans fully embracing shale gas development, an energy source that undercuts production costs of standard hydro-electric generation, Quebec's bailiwick.

While Quebec soldiers on with wasteful wind-farms and the unneeded development of the massive La Romaine power project, the message hasn't sunk in that the hydro-electric ship has sailed.

Quite simply Quebec is out of financial options. At least Jean Charest realized that natural resource development was the last chance towards prosperity and so created the 'Plan Nord,' which the PQ and environmentalists fought tooth and nail.

After three failed attempts to pass a mining Bill, one that started out with the goal of gouging developers out of existence, our enlightened Natural Resource Minister (who doesn't understand what a loan guarantee is)  was finally forced on her fourth attempt into a humiliating compromise, which at any rate, may be too little and too late.

"The Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based think tank, ranked Quebec as the most attractive jurisdiction in the world for mining activity between 2007 and 2010 but the province has since slipped to 11th place." Link

Under the PQ, business is wary to invest and who can honestly blame them?
Between long regulatory delays, endless BAPE hearings, shifting regulations and high taxes and labour costs, investing in banana republics and war-torn countries, actually becomes a more attractive alternative!

And so going into next year, we have already been promised another deficit, as well as the year after. The finance minister, crossing his fingers, predicts that in 2017 perhaps the budget will be balanced but really, who can believe that.

The truth is that the province can no longer generate enough revenues to cover the budget, this even after massive transfers from Ottawa and the future looks bleaker as health costs (our biggest expense
continues) to rise with our aging population,
While the PQ is talking about putting a cap on expenses, it hasn't really worked out with spending increasing beyond revenue growth.

There is no solution but deep cuts to existing programs, but what PQ government is going to do that, an admission that the Quebec social model has failed?

So what will 2014 bring?...............More of the same I'm afraid.

Political expediency being what it is, the CAQ is deathly afraid of being voted out of existence,and so will support any nonsense put forward by the Marois government, as long as they are allowed to save face and given the opportunity to 'contribute' to the proposed legislation, something La Pauline will certainly allow.
After all, remaining in power is the be all and end all.

As the economy deteriorates, and the financial situation sinks further, look to the PQ to ramp up  the rhetoric against Ottawa, blaming the financial problems on the  mythical 'fiscal imbalance' ( a concept where Ottawa takes too large a slice of the available national tax pie.)
The narrative to be woven is that the evil ROC is stealing the hard-earned tax money of Quebecers to support a military-industrial complex which Quebec eschews, the Oil Sands which drives up the value of the dollar, expensive ship-building projects in other provinces and financial support of the hated Queen, the effect, short-changing Quebecers on every level.

This is going to be the debate of the future, because frankly, Quebec is unsustainable and when all else fails...Blame Canada.

Laughable?.......wait for it...it's coming.