LOWER CHURCHILL- Manufacturing Dissent

It didn't take long for the politicians of all stripes in Quebec City to come out loudly against the announcement by the Conservative government that they'd support the Newfoundland project to build an underwater cable to carry electricity to American markets from the prospective Lower Churchill hydro-electric project.

Quebec has long held that the overland route through Quebec makes more economic sense, but the chances of Newfoundland entering into any agreement with Quebec vis-a-vis electricity transmission is, as they say, slim to none.

The deal that presently carries Newfoundland power across Quebec with almost all the profit accruing to Hydro-Quebec, remains a powerful humiliation to Newfoundlanders, who although responsible for their own stupidity, hold Quebec responsible for refusing to re-negotiate the one-sided deal.

The Quebec position, that a deal's a deal, is thoroughly defensible, but insures that Newfoundland won't do another deal with the province as long as the current Churchill Falls accord remains  in place.

The Quebec government remains peeved that its promise not to screw Newfoundland again, on a new deal for the Lower Churchill, is falling on deaf ears. For Newfoundland, it's a case of- Once bitten, twice shy. 

By the way, one could only imagine what would be if the shoe was on the other foot.

For Quebec to complain now, that the decision to bypass Quebec is somehow unexpected and unfair smacks of self-delusion.

And so,  Quebec politicians are howling that Ottawa has chosen the Newfoundland side unfairly and are pedalling the notion that it's the crime of the century and that once again Quebec is being disfavoured.

First the facts;
Ottawa has promised to guarantee the loan related to the project. There is NO DIRECT FINANCING.

Bernard Drainville

It's like signing for a loan for your son to buy a car. You only pay, if he stiffs on the payments and let's hope Newfoundland is a better risk than junior. By the way, that loan guarantee isn't that risky, the deal is pretty sound, but it does allow Newfoundland to borrow at a lower rate, shaving millions from the cost of the project.

To listen to Bernard Drainville a bigwig in the PQ, the entire project is being financed in part by federal tax dollars, an outrageous claim that goes beyond merely colouring the truth.

Mr. Drainville made a four-minute YouTube video in which he explains the deal telling by one whopper after another.

I knew I was in for a treat when Mr. Drainville started the explanation telling his audience that Newfoundland once belonged to 'us.' He carefully avoids using the term Quebec, because Labrador never belonged to Quebec at all. It was at one time part of Lower Canada, but when Quebec entered confederation as a province, Newfoundland was not part of the deal.
In 1927, the permanent border was adjusted in Newfoundland's favour, but nobody seemed to care, it was an uninhabitable wasteland.
In fact the Newfoundlanders tried to sell Labrador off to Quebec twice, the first time during the boundary dispute for a paltry 9 million dollars and later on in the Depression for 110 million. Both offers were rejected. Read an interesting article on the subject.

But the truth never seems to get in the way of a good story and Mr. Drainville goes on to tell us that the Newfoundlanders don't want to use the Quebec route because they're not ready to pay their fair share, a bald-faced lie.

Newfoundland tried to get access to the Quebec power grid following the open access rules that govern the fair use of transmission lines to bring power to market. But Quebec put a spanner in the works, claiming that the grid couldn't handle the power, holding out for a deal that would screw Newfoundland again, demanding that the power be sold to Hydro-Quebec at a cut rate fee rather than being wheeled through Quebec for a service fee.  LINK
Mr. Drainville's idea of a fair price is likely the price that Quebec now pays for Churchill power;

"The provincial government (Newfoundland) has claimed that Quebec reaped 95 per cent of net revenues from Churchill Falls - $19 billion of a total $20 billion - up to the end of 2006." Link

Read Danny Williams speech to the Canadian Club of Ottawa of Ottawa last year, in which he destroys any pretension of fairness on the part of the government of Quebec in regards to cooperation. LINK

Mr. Drainville next tells us that the Newfoundland government asked Ottawa to finance a part of the project and that this represents an unfair treatment of Quebec because Quebec paid for its own electrical development.
Cleverly, he intimates that Ottawa is financing the project, when clearly it is not!

Building on his pack of lies, he then tells the biggest lie of all.
"And so we find ourselves in a situation where Quebeckers will finance 25% of a project that will compete with our state company (Hydro-Quebec.)"

In a few short sentences Mr. Drainville has changed a simple loan guarantee into a financing scheme where Quebec is paying 25% of the whole Newfoundland project!

He then sanctimoniously tells us that Quebec never asked for money to develop its own  hydro-electricity and so Newfoundland shouldn't be allowed to get money either.
Mr. Drainville would actually have us believe that Quebec somehow pays its own way, conveniently forgetting the billions that pour into the province each year from Ottawa.

By the way, even  his statement that Quebec pays 25% of the federal taxes is false, another exaggeration. Quebec has less than 23% of the Canadian population and since Quebeckers make less money than Canadians, the amount they pay in taxes must be somewhere between 20%-22%.

But let's not let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Of course Gilles Duceppe, Pauline and even the Premier are up in arms.

The real hurt in all this is the sombre realization that Newfoundland is actually doing what it said it would and after 40 years of being mocked, it is ready to leave Quebec out of the equation.

Believe it or not, Quebec really believed that in the end, the overland route through Quebec would be chosen because of expediency.
Using the land-sea route will cost Newfoundland a bundle, a lot more than the Quebec route, but the project remains viable and that's all that counts.

So all that's left to Quebec is to make the best of a bad situation and that's to bash Ottawa over the deal, manufacturing dissent through dishonesty.
Good Luck.
And as I've reminded readers this past year.......
Payback's a bitch!

Read: Quebec versus Newfoundland- Whiners Square Off! 
Read: Danny Williams Bashes Quebec

Living the Canadian Dream in Quebec

One of the most contentious issues in the Quebec/Canada language and culture debate is the accusation made by nationalists that Quebec Anglophones and most ethnics are disloyal by refusing to assimilate to the culture and language of the majority.

The debate was started by Jacques Parizeau on the election night" after his famous comment about "Money and the ethnic vote"

Yves Michaud

Five years later, the issue was brought to the forefront with Yves Michaud's speech to the Estates General where he complained that in the heavily Jewish town of Côte-Saint-Luc not one voter had cast a ballot for sovereignty in the 1995 referendum. See Is Yves Michaud Racist?
This led to a motion of condemnation in the National Assembly which still remains a sore point today with sovereignists complaining that Mr Michaud was rail roaded.

But the Michaud affair, highlights the current debate where some nationalists advance the theory that ethnics are disloyal and hence poor citizens because of their collective refusal to give their loyalty to Quebec, instead of Canada.
The idea that everyone living in Quebec must embrace the French language and common French culture is what Michaud and some writers on vigile.net advance.

Let us consider the mythical story of a make-believe town in northern Ontario where 20% of the residents are Franco-Ontarians, the rest English speaking 'pur-laines'

Everybody always got along famously in Mythica, the two language groups although sharing a different  language and culture co-existed in peaceful harmony.
The Francophones while living among an 80% English majority enjoyed French language television produced in Quebec, had access to a local French newspaper and went to movies in the town's French language movie theatre and of course the children attended French schools. Stores in the 'French' part of town operated largely in French, but welcomed Anglos just the same, after all, a buck is a buck. Life was good.

  But the 'French" situation irked a certain group of English language militants who were organizing politically on a platform of eliminating the bilingual nature of Mythica. Lo and behold, after several years of fear-mongering, a member of this group was elected  mayor, as well as a majority of city council.

The mayor organized a referendum around the question of changing Mythica to a unilingual English town. The referendum would decide if the city could eliminate all bilingual city services, French signage, and restrict access to French schools.
Obviously the francophones weren't pleased and decided to organize to help defeat the referendum proposal come voting day.

The principle of the French high school led a furious campaign to convince francophones to vote NO, warning them  that the passage of the referendum would mean the end of their community.

The referendum came and went and when the votes were tallied it seemed that 99% of francophones voted NO. On the other side, a majority of 60% Anglophones voted YES  but combined with the francophone vote, the NO side won by the scantest of margins.
The mayor was furious.
We lost because of the French! These people, acting as a disloyal bloc, thwarted the will of the majority English, he ranted.

Many English radicals took up the call. Those damn Frenchies! Bad citizens the lot of them, watching French TV, remaining apart, refusing to embrace English and worst of all, insisting on keeping their French culture! Outrageous!

The leader of the Francophone NO side boasted gleefully that it was the bloc of French votes that defeated the referendum, a statement for which he was roasted royally by the Anglo militants, furious that their will was thwarted by an ungrateful minority.

Hmmm.......
Now before I get a slew of comments saying that my story isn't comparable to the situation in Quebec, my only point is that Francophones in other provinces have a right to live speak and live in French. I know it's a  harder situation for them than anglophones in Quebec, but it's an ideal that is fair and noble.
Secondly, is my point that people have a right to vote selfishly in their own best interest, even if it conflicts with the majority.
Honestly, in the above story, can you see any francophones voting YES in the referendum?

Seeing things from another point of view is difficult, especially for some sovereignists here in Quebec who cannot understand how someone can live in Quebec, while living the Canadian dream in English.

For these people assimilation of the French minority in Ontario is a cruel circumstance of ethnic cleansing while assimilation of Quebec Anglos and Ethnics in Quebec is a noble and entirely justifiable cause.
It a question of perspective, I imagine.

Talking to a leader of the Jewish community (one of those accused of inciting the community to vote NO) in light of Michaud's rant that 95% of Jews voted No in the referendum, I was told jokingly that he couldn't understand what the 5% of Jews who voted YES were possibly thinking!

And so today, attacks on the Ethnics and Jews in particular, on websites like vigile.net is based on the bankrupt and wrong-headed notion that certain citizens have an obligation to live and act as the majority wants them to act.
Most of the hatred displayed on vigile.net comes from a very small group of frustrated old farts, who realize rather painfully that like Pierre Falardeau, they are destined to die in the country of Canada and not an independent Quebec and for Yves Michaud and company, somebody has to be blamed.

NDP Running Separatist Candidate in Montreal

Marching with 'Uncle' Thom Muclair & radio bore Anne Lagacé Dowson

As I said a couple of posts back, I'll be writing about local candidates running in the federal election and I hope to bring to your attention a perspective you'll never see in the mainstream press.

A recent article in Le Devoir. discussing a Quebec Solidaire weekend convention, caught my eye because of a paragraph buried at the tail-end of the story.

"A Québec solidaire militant, Alexandre Boulerice, also a spokesperson for CUPE, is the NDP candidate in the constituency Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie. In an email exchange, Mr. Boulerice  underlined that he was still a member of the Québec solidaire and a separatist. "Anyone who supports the NDP program can be a member. We can place in the forefront, social and environmental issues before the national question." Le Devoir

I'll gently remind readers that the Quebec Solidaire, is a much more radical and sovereignist political party than the Parti Quebecois. It's the party of Amir Khadir and the happy home of Quebec's Communist Party, which is an officially recognized wing of the party. At a weekend convention last week, the party called for raising the minimum wage to $16 an hour and the party's leader, Françoise David, called for deliberately slowing down our economic growth because it's bad for the health of citizens. LINK{FR}

That the NDP would run a communist socialist is perhaps understandable, but a separatist is a little much to expect, even from the NDP. It should be noted it's the second time around for the sovereignist who also ran under the NDP banner back in 2008, where he finished third with 8,500 votes.
His official NDP NPD website

Here from his blog is part of an incredible letter written in rebuttal to a collegue in Quebec Solidaire who is arguing that members of the party should vote for Gilles Duceppe's Bloc Quebecois

Reply to Francois Cyr, Quebec Solidaire activist who encourages people to vote strategicly for the Bloc
Dear Francis, 

I have a series of questions for you:
What is the the story behind  this text on pressegauche.org over the need to vote for the Bloc? Since when does an activist in Quebec Solidaire promote the concept of "strategic voting?" Is it a question of  promoting the "best of the worst?" Is this the new strategy for the Quebec election?  Is that what you'll tell people in the face of the dangers of a majority Charest government? And so we should all vote for the PQ, in order to stop the evil Liberals (or ADQ)?
Don't you realize that the Bloc is the little brother of the Parti Quebecois that you battle? Comprised essentially of the same activists, the same people who finance and make the decisions? Don't you see that the Bloc may appear more progressive because it will never be able  to exercise power, unlike its PQ sponsor in Quebec?
What is this mania to peddle the same old Bloc cliches that say that  the NDP is centralist? You've read the Sherbrooke Declaration adopted at the 2006 convention? What do you think of the possibility for Quebec to withdraw from a federal program with compensation? Is it centralizing?
Do you remember that Jack Layton, as a young student in Montreal, militated in favour of McGill University becoming French? Have you considered that Mulcair worked for the Council of the French language in the first term of Levesque? No, you push this under the carpet. Do you counter the Bloc arguments by pointing out that the NDP caucus supported - last spring - a motion that Bill 101 applies to federally regulated companies in Quebec .     No. A strange silence suddenly prevails  ... LINK TO THE NDP CANDIDATE'S OFFICIAL BLOG

Layton +separatist = NDP NPD

What is completely stunning about all this is that Alexandre Boulerice writes to his confrere, another Bloc solidaire militant, Francois Cyr, on an official NDP website.

For Layton and the NDP, their new-found strength in Quebec hasn't led to an avalanche of people lining up to run for office.
With so many elections so closely bunched over the last few years, NDP candidates have been essentially cannon fodder and few want to re-live the experience of taking a month and a half off of their life, working the shopping centres and street corners, just to get their ass kicked in the election.

In The Lac-St-Jean region, the NDP has found just one person to represent them so far, a retired unionist. Link{FR}

The party is hard put to find enough poteaus to fill the ranks.
In case you didn't know, a 'Poteau' is a disparaging insider political term that refers to a candidate who has zero chance to win and runs only to show the party colours. The candidate is usually a young idealist and his or her campaign consists largely of just placing election posters on city light poles, and thus the term 'poteau' (pole.)

Here's a classic example of a POTEAU;

Nicholas Thibodeau, is running in Mont-
Royal, a riding that consists in part with one of Quebec's wealthier  Anglo/Jewish communities of Hampstead/Cote Saint Luc, coupled with an across the railroad tracks working ethnic community in Snowdon.
The Liberal party has had a stranglehold on the riding all the way back to Pierre-Elliot Trudeau and it is presently held by Irwin Cotler the ex-justice  Minister, who is running once again,  this time challenged by another high-profile Jew, Saulie Zajdel.

Mr. Thibodeau is an environmentalist who dreams of spending 2 billion dollars to cover the Decarie Expressway, a big issue in a riding that probably has more BMWs and Mercedes than anywhere else in Quebec. He has run unsuccessfully before, winning an amazing 7.7% of the vote. GOOD LUCK!!!

By the way, Mr Thibodeau's campaign poster omits the English version of the riding's name, 'Mount Royal' and actually has different messages in English and in French, which is, I guess, a neat metaphor for NDP policy.

Quebec Politicans Take an Axe to Democracy

Largely unnoticed by most, was a recent proposition put forward by the Parti Quebecois to manipulate the electoral map to it's advantage. This, hot on the heels of the Liberal party's rejection of recommendations by the Director General des Elections Quebec to re-jig the electoral map to better reflect the actual population distribution.

"Equality of the votes of electors
The equality of the votes of electors is an important prerequisite for effective representation. Each electoral district must have roughly an equal number of electors." Director General des elections Quebec  

While the principle of one person/one vote represents the democratic ideal, it never has actually been fully embraced in Quebec, with some ridings enjoying markedly a different voter base.

Definition of "Gerrymander"

"To divide a geographic area into voting districts so as to give unfair advantage to one party in elections. "

FROM DGE'S Website; 

"...equality of the vote consists of regrouping an approximately equal number of electors in each electoral division in the Province of Quebec. The Act specifies that the number of electors in an electoral division can not be greater or less than 25% of the average.

However, the Commission de la représentation électorale (CRE) can establish an exceptional electoral division that will have special dispensation from the ±25% criteria, if it judges that the decision can meet the goal of the Act: effective representation. In these cases, the CRE must give its grounds for the decision in writing." LINK

While the Director General espouses a policy of fairness, he is left with a fairly large loophole with which the principle of one person/one vote can be completely ignored.  And so we are rewarded with this dog's breakfast of riding inequity, where the number voters vary considerably.

The average number of eligible electors per riding is about 46,000, but twenty-nine of the 125 ridings fall outside the ±25% rule.
That's quite a bunch of exceptions!

If you live in the remote Magdalen Islands, your vote is actually worth almost six times as much as if you live in the Montreal suburb of Laval and as you can see, the Gaspe peninsula region is vastly over-represented.

Back in September the man in charge of the  electoral map, Marcel Blanchet, the DGE (Director General des elections)  proposed making some changes to address the problem of over and under-representation. After a three year study he suggested merging some rural ridings and adding a couple to heavily populated districts.
Premier Charest would have nothing to do with the plan because it would affect an upcoming by-election where he held out hopes of holding a riding in  Rivière-du-Loup (which he eventually lost anyways) and so, he ripped up the the DGE's proposal, which was non-binding.
In disgust Mr. Blanchet resigned.

In a decision worthy of a Quebec politician, Pierre Moreau, the Liberal minister in charge, opted to add the three seats proposed by the DGE, but not to merge the three over-represented rural seats. Bravo! Link{FR}
Considering that Ontario has 18 less seats for 50% more citizens, adding another three seems a bit excessive, but hey, this is Quebec, North Americas most over-represented and governed political entity.

Now the Parti Quebecois is proposing to make this rural/urban divide permanent with a cockamamie proposal to create two classes of ridings, rural and urban, where the concept one person/one vote would be thrown out the window.

"To add to the election Law criteria, giving a preponderance related to the dynamic occupation of the region.
("D’ajouter aux critères de la Loi électorale l’occupation dynamique du territoire en lui conférant une valeur prépondérante") PQ website {FR} 

Sounds like BS in both English and French and it reminds me of the convoluted referendum question, couched in obscure terms to soft pedal a nebulous  proposition.

Talking to Mario Dumont on his television show, xenophobe/Anglophobe Gilles Proulx said out loud what nobody in the PQ was willing to say, that the proposition is wise because it reduces the power  of immigrants in Montreal, because, after all, they aren't really Quebeckers.

Federal Election: Please, Let's NOT Encourage People to Vote

And so we're off to the polls again, the umpteenth time in the last couple of years. I'll be writing about some of the local candidates over the next couple of weeks and as you can expect, don't expect it to be flattering.
So let's set the tone with a piece about a theme you're  not likely to read anywhere else!

Now that a federal election is on, get ready to be bombarded with sanctimonious entreaties by the government and the media reminding us of our civic duty to vote. 

According to Elections Canada, the agency spent in excess of 90 million dollars trying to convince Canadians to vote in the 2008 federal general election.
It doesn't seem that the campaign was particularly successful as the turnout fell off rather dramatically from elections in the past with just 59% of Canadians exercising their franchise, which represented a 10% drop from the previous election.

With the media obsessed with the campaign, the landscape awash in garish campaign posters, who can possibly remain unaware that an election is on? As the fateful day approaches, the media hysteria ratchets up the guilt-inspiring mantra of "Thou shalt Vote!"

Do we really need Elections Canada wasting money reminding us about what we already know?

How many non-voters the Elections Canada campaign convinced to cast a ballot can never be determined, but it can't possibility be that many.
Even using an overly generous estimate of 5% of the 14 million votes cast, it means that the government spent in excess of $130.00 of taxpayer money on each of those that they actually convinced to vote!

 That's a lot of dough to convince someone to do something that should come naturally to anyone interested in the society that they live in.
Another great big waste of money.

In fact, it's actually a very bad idea to convince someone who is not really interested to vote, to do so through guilt or a bribe.

Does the Elections Canada ideal, where every eligible voter actually casts a ballot, serve the better interests of our nation, more than leaving the political decisions to those who are self-motivated to vote?

While I'll defend to the death everyone's right to vote, that doesn't mean I want to encourage idiots and morons to do so. I'd be happier if they stayed at home and left the decision to those more capable of making an informed decision.

Of course not voting is considered a sign of poor citizenship, something I vehemently disagree with. If someone determines that they aren't up to the task or that they don't care who is elected, why should they vote, just to satisfy some democratic fantasy of those who care?

If we truly live in a democratic society where personal choice is respected, the decision not to cast a ballot must be respected as is the decision to vote.

Lets consider this burlesque scenario;

An Elections Canada official is wandering down an Ottawa street and spots a bum propped up against the wall, one hand proffering a tin cup for spare change and the other wrapped tightly around a bottle tightly ensconced in a brown paper bag from which he partakes a sip or two every few minutes.

"Pardon me sir, do you know that there is a federal election coming up?"

"Huh"

"Yes sir, its not only your right to vote, but you civic duty as well!"

"Spare any change?"

"I'll tell you what, if you vote, I'll give you $130.00"

"Wha??"

"That's right, 130 bucks, it won't take more than half a hour."

"How do I vote?"

"I'll take you to the polling station, where you'll put an mark on a ballot by  the name of the  candidate of your choice.

"I can't read" 

"Doesn't matter, go "Eeny-Meany-Miney-Moe".. It's the act of voting that is empowering!"

"130 Bucks you say, I'll do it!.......... By the way, can you give me an advance?"

  Arrghhhhh.!!!!!!...............

I like to think of the voting dynamic, comparable to a group of friends going out for Chinese food.
Seated around the table you have all types. Some are adroit and well-informed in the art of Chinese food, others are not so sure and still others are clueless and some aren't even fond of Chinese food. Invariably those in the know offer to do the ordering.
This is a relief to those who are ambivalent, clueless or just don't care. "Go ahead, order whatever!"

Would you really want the idiots in the second group to take part in the ordering? Would it really be helpful?

In the United States 29% of the people can't name their vice-president. In Canada we are no better.
Should these people have the right to vote?

Absolutely!

Should they be encouraged to vote? Hmmmm.....NOT SO SURE!