PQ Caught Showering Money on Friends

I had originally held this spot for a critique of the proposed changes to Bill 101 that was introduced Wednesday in the National Assembly by the minister in charge, Diane DeCourcy, but happily for us, the government wimped out on just about every major threat pledge that they made during the election campaign, including imposing language restrictions on cegeps and day cares, as well as imposing the francization rules on companies of between 11 and 49 employees, hitherto exempt.

The Bill does extend francization rules to companies with over 26 employees, but it will take twenty years for the OQLF to get around to inspecting each and every one of them.
It is however going to lead to many companies keeping employee levels frozen at the 25 people level, as in France where the number of companies with 49 employees is 2.4 greater than companies employing 50 because of the draconian government measures that kick in, once companies go over the fifty threshold. Read the story

Click to download a PDF of  Bill 14 in English

So certain 'English' Quebec companies here will think hard before hiring that 26th employee, with some opting to use contracting out if necessary to remain free from being under the yoke of OQLF tyranny.
You can read the  provisions of the Bill 14 by clicking on the link on the right. It's a bit ironic that to carry any force in law, the Bill must still be written in English as well as French!

There is one provision of the law that sounds a bit harsh, but one that I can't complain about, that is the measure that requires a student attending English cegep to pass a French test before graduating.
Is that really unreasonable, given where we live?
In fact French should be a required course for all students attending English cegep, just like in high school.
After all, isn't school about teaching real world skills and who can argue that speaking French in Quebec isn't one of the most critical skills non-Francophones need to acquire?

Another aspect to the law that I don't object to is that English students will be now be given priority for valuable  places in English cegeps. Over the last couple of years students with very decent grades were being squeezed out of English cegep by very high achieving francophone students seeking an English education.
It's a bit unfair to francophones with superior grades, but the schools were built for the English community and since the logical alternative of increasing capacity is a cup of poison for the education department, rationing is necessary.
Of course many in the English community will be screaming blue murder over the changes in the law, but realistically we got off easy.

So all in all, Bill 14 was much ado about nothing. The damage could have been much worse.
As the police say" Move along, nothing to see here...."

Now let us turn the gist of this post, the unconscionable orgy of financial largess being showered upon political friends of the PQ, lucrative government appointments in high places that have an astounding cost attached to the public purse.

When the Pauline Marois campaigned on a platform of doing things differently than the Liberals, nobody thought that it meant that the PQ would be even worse abusers of the system!
One of the very first acts of the new government signalled that when it comes to integrity, taxpayers were to be treated to the same sleaze the PQ accused its Liberal predecessors of mastering.
So much for the promise of a new broom sweeping clean the stain of corruption and political opportunism!
Just three weeks after the PQ won its narrow Parliamentary minority, the orgy of political appointments began, starting with the naming of a defeated PQ candidate, Nicolas Girard,  to a plum job at the Agence Métropolitaine de Transport, the agency charged with transit planning for the region Montreal.

"Girard lost his seat in the Montreal riding of Gouin to Québec Solidaire co-spokesperson Françoise David....
....Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault denounced the appointment as cronyism.
"Mr. Girard, with all his skills, doesn't have any experience in management. So this is exactly what the Parti Québécois had been denouncing: partisanship over ability," Legault said.
The presidency of the AMT carries a salary of about $170,000 a year, well more than the basic MNA salary of $86,242 plus certain expenses." Link

And so for Pauline and the PQ, it was off to the races, or rather to the political pig trough invoking the timed-honoured political payoff device known as "Jobs for the Boys"

This week, opposition parties were furious with the disclosure of the obscene compensation package offered Quebec's new ambassador to the United States delegate-general to New York, André Boisclair, when it was discovered by a journalist, while perusing the Official Gazette, (the government weekly publication, detailing those government decrees passed in cabinet, not subject to parliamentary approval) that Mr. Boisclair was offered an added perk worth millions, to take the job in New York.

That deal included a permanent post as a highly paid civil servant that would survive his three year term in New York, something so outrageous that after a firestorm of controversy, the government was forced to take back the offer. Read: Marois retracts sweetheart deal

Once again the Marois government demonstrated its true nature, improvisation and incompetence, stumbling from one disaster to another, on its way to becoming, quite frankly, a laughingstock.

In explaining how Pauline lurches from one disastrous decision to another, Joanne Marcotte a leading Quebec conservative described it best in a panel discussion on TV..
She told the panel that Pauline likes to makes decisions by consensus, and listens to what her cabinet colleagues recommend.
The trouble, as Madame Marcotte describes, is that the ministers are all idiots and that the decisions arrived at the cabinet table are all basically flawed, Ha! Ha!

At any rate, all the opposition and media criticism was focused on the financial aspects of the appointment, careful not to attack Mr. Boisclair's qualifications, reputation or bone fides.

So let me do exactly that.
Mr. Boisclair is under-qualified for the job, plain and simple.

Just about the only thing in favour of his nomination is the fact that he speaks good English, a fact that eliminated 99% of those PQ elements that were vying for the plushest job that the government has to offer. Sadly, when it comes to good English, the PQ ranks are decidedly thin, unlike in the old days, where being fluent in English was de rigueur for the PQ leadership.

Boisclair is a dropout, who started but never finished an undergraduate university degree. Like many under-educated politicians with higher political aspirations, he sought to boost his C/V by attending a college-like school that has limited entrance requirements, one that would allow him to obtain a higher degree without ever obtaining a lower degree. How's that for honesty.

The school that Boisclair chose is the impressive sounding John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where it seems that the only entrance requirements are that the applicant be public persona and one who can pony up the $100,000 that the course eats up.

Poof! After two short years, Boisclair 'earns' the impressively sounding  Master's in Public Administration, this without ever graduating university!

I've walked into many a politician's, lawyers and business executive office and seen these extended learning degrees hung on the wall masquerading as the real McCoy. The truth is that they are only slightly harder to earn than a diploma from the Acme Driving School, and like the driving school, no applicant with the ready, is turned down.
And so it came as no surprise that in praising Mr. Boisclair's qualifications, Pauline Marois made it a point to mention that he was a graduate of a school associated with Harvard University, proving that it is possible to fool the people almost all of the time.

So it seems that the $100,000 investment certainly paid off and now the Quebec government can boast a 'Haavid man' in New York!

I hope Mr. Boisclair will take advantage of his 'degree' and join the snooty Harvard Club of New York, just down the street from the storied Algonquin Hotel, a bastion of the privileged and accomplished, with membership limited to Harvard alumni, which I guess he is entitled to claim, having bought earned his way in.
There he can pretend to be worthy to rub shoulders with true titans of industry, science, the arts, academia and government.
I remember having a wonderful lunch in the historic panelled dining room and while visiting the facilities, standing shoulder to shoulder sandwiched in between none other than Henry Kissinger and a future President of the United States. Unfortunately, maintaining the urinal etiquette, I resisted the temptation to strike up a conversation, but ahem... I digress.

Contrary to what Pauline Marois has told us about his many qualifications, Boisclair goes to New York as an idiot abroad, out of his depth, out of his league and with a network of contacts thinner than a runway model during New York's fashion week.
He's got no background in finance, nor any contacts in the business world other than his lobbying job, representing a shale gas company out of Calgary, eager to get their hands on drilling rights in Quebec.

Boisclair isn't particularly plugged into any of New York's large ethnic communities, be it Italian, Jewish, Black or Latino and he's got no network going for him among politicians or business people.

New Yorkers, like all Americans are not particularly fond of the French, and a Quebecer who represents a socialist tax and spend government won't go over big in the Big Apple. Worse still, shilling for Quebec sovereignty and the breakup of America's most loyal ally is not something that  will make him many friends or put him on the 'A' list.

Compared to his predecessor, the worldly, eminently competent and supremely connected John Parisella, it is like replacing a Itzhak Perlman with your daughter's violin teacher.

And so Boisclair's lifetime gravy train has derailed, he will not be joining the civil service after his appointment ends, unless the PQ is in power and deems to shower him with more government largess.
For Boisclair, it is a case of close, but no cigar, he'll have to content himself to the $100k plus pension that awaits him for his service in the National Assembly.
The poor lad.....

According to Pauline Marois, the Boisclair compensation package was reasonable, but the negative public reaction convinced her that perhaps she should reconsider. And so Marois promised that she won't do these deals again, opting to form a hiring committee to take the blame, figure out the right thing to do in these cases.

Similar deal as Boisclair, a lifetime job!

But Marois' mea culpa is a bit hard to take when she fails to address the issue of another recent appointment, that of Pierre Baril, who got the same deal as Boisclair when he was parachuted into the head job at the BAPE, the agency that decides whether proposed projects can go ahead based on environmental concerns.
Baril, a militant ecologist, was installed by the then Minister of the Environment, Daniel Breton, another militant ecologist, who cleaned house at the BAPE, giving it a new activist leftist/environmental political direction.

Mr. Baril received the same deal as Boisclair, that is a commitment that he be placed in the civil service once his term at BAPE was up, at a salary of over $150K(indexed) until retirement!
You can download a PDF of the cabinet decree describing the conditions of his job, which has the same provision as in the now former Boisclair agreement. Read the Decree{Fr}

So why hasn't Marois not reversed Mr. Baril's deal as well?
Probably because it hasn't been publicized and Marois is certainly not volunteering to open up another can of embarrassment of her own accord.
Perhaps the media will soon wake up soon, I certainly hope so.

Now a word on this 'permanency' in the civil service, that has been the subject of much discussion in the media of late.
What it means is that once you get a job in the civil service, you are entitled to 100% job security, you cannot be demoted or fired under normal circumstances.

It means that when Mr. Baril transfers into the civil service once his job at BAPE is over, he will be guaranteed the same $150k+ salary (indexed) until he retires!

The farce of  'permanency' is manifested after every change in government.
The deputy ministers loyal to the previous government cannot be fired to make way for new blood and so a great big game of musical chairs is played, where these senior civil servants are transferred about to different departments, but unlike the kindergarten game, no one is ever left 'out.'
Those who are unwanted are just transferred to other departments to twiddle their thumbs in overpaid make-believe jobs, while they wait out the years in anticipation of  retirement. Sweet!

A final note on the Boisclair affair.
Jean-François Lisée, the minister under who Boisclair was to work, defended the 'permanency'  aspect to  the appointment with gusto in the first days of the controversy, at one point telling reporters that Lawrence Cannon, the Ambassador to France was also given a permanent job in the federal civil service.
That fact turned out to be 100% false and after being called out over the mistake by the media, Lisée was forced to grovel out an apology, to the National Assembly, the media and Mr. Cannon himself.
I guess Mr. Lisée is learning the hard way that his habit of fitting facts to suit his position may work in the blogosphere, but not in government, where every word he utters is weighed for accuracy.
I'm sure that in Lisée's case there will many more such gaffes, his penchant for distortion  just too ingrained.

Oh..Ohh... Oh.. One final, final note.

I can't help but see the delicious irony in Mr. Breton's appointment of his good friend, Pierre Baril, as the head of BAPE.
The ex-Environment Minister lost his cabinet post in a cloud of controversy and returns to the back benches at $85K a year (instead of the $150k ministerial salary,) with zero job security.

In the meantime, the guy he appointed to BAPE, Mr. Baril, is guaranteed a $150K indexed salary until he retires, at which time he will collect a healthy pension.

Karma's a bitch!

Quebec Corruption Transcends Language, Ethnicity and Class

 It's safe to say that Quebecers, rocked by endless stories of corruption, collusion and malfeasance over the last year or two, have become obsessed with the issue, to the point that it has become the overriding public concern, ahead of the accumulating debt problem, high taxes, deteriorating wealth, a health system in trouble, education issues and indeed even sovereignty itself.

Ask the average Jean or Jane in the street what the number one public issue in Quebec is and invariably, corruption will almost certainly top the list almost all every time.

The voluminous catalogue of corrupt business people, public employees and politicians exposed as crooks has indeed tested our society's ability to cope, the ubiquitous stain of dishonesty tarnishing us all, leading to a collective sense of rage and overwhelming feelings of humiliation.
And so it is natural to seek a scapegoat.
It is convenient and therapeutic to find someone else to lay the blame upon and of course, it usually falls upon the Jews or the Italians to take the rap, both communities historically singled out whenever blame for society's ills are to be apportioned. 

In this case, it is of course the Italians who are being scapegoated because they are strongly represented in the construction industry and are front and centre in the recent scandals at Montreal City Hall.
This, largely because the Charbonneau commission's first witness, corrupt businessman Lino Zambito, testified that a bunch of Italian entrepreneurs were paying off city officials to 'win' contracts with the help and oversight of the Mafia.
And so the blame game is on.... c'est la faute des Italiens..

Le Canada, un refuge pour la mafia?  Radio-Canada

Une faction calabraise de la mafia italienne est au pouvoir à Montréal Huffington Post .

"Bid-rigging, a cartel headed by businessmen of Italian origin and  corrupt officials and politicians accountable to the mafia, as confirmed by testimony before the commission..." Link{fr}

Of course these stories are tame, compared to the stuff published on the Internet, where the entire Italian community was quickly held responsible and smeared for the foibles of a few.

"What strikes me the most, since the beginning of the Charbonneau Commission's hearings, is the number of Italian-Quebecers that have been implicated, and the total absence of reaction of the leaders of the Italian-Quebec community, who seem totally indifferent and insensitive to the damage to their reputation that these rotten apples have inflicted...." Richard LeHir, vigile.net{Fr}

Of  course the unsaid contention is clear, that these 'rotten' Italians, like a drug dealer enticing a twelve year old to try his product, were somehow responsible for corrupting the hitherto 'white as snow' Quebecois ....bah!!

But as the corruption inquiry widens and as events play out, a different, reality emerges, one which exposes the reality that corruption in Quebec transcends language, ethnicity, religion and social class.

The English, the French, the Ethnics, the rich and the poor, the educated and the not so bright, are all as guilty as the next when it comes to corruption.
It is perhaps, one of the few aspects of Quebec society where everybody, but everybody participates equally.

Let us review what we have found out in one short year;

• The City of Montreal is not only thoroughly corrupt, it appears that it has always been this way (and long before the Italians arrived). The ex-deputy-mayor stands indicted on various charges of fraud and influence pedalling, while the entire construction department seems to be under the influence of the mob and its proxies, where millions of dollars in bribes were made to city planners, inspectors, engineers and politicians, resulting in the sad reality that up to one third the cost of building the city's infrastructure was going to pay for graft. Mayor Gerald Tremblay was drummed out of office and the chief fundraiser of his ex-political party, Bernard Trépanier of the Union Montreal political party, stands indicted for influence-pedalling as well.

• Ditto for Quebec's third largest city, Laval, where the mayor himself, the now resigned Gilles Vaillancourt is accused of being the Godfather  Jabba the Hutt of corruption. A couple of years ago, two provincial politicians came forward to say the good Mayor offered them both $10,000 in cash, as illegal campaign contributions. It is rumoured that when police raided two of his bank safe-deposit boxes, investigators found them stuffed with over $100K in cash. When anti-corruption police raided his luxury apartment in  Laval, Vaillancourt's cousin (the official owner of the digs) was caught trying to flush money down the toilet. The problem was that the stack of new money wouldn't flush because the bills were made of the new polymer compound!  Ha!!

• Just about every major consulting/engineering firm in Quebec is alleged to have participated in various levels of fraud, either to secure government contracts, to funnel illegal campaign contributions to political parties and politicians and/or inflating cost estimates to enrich construction contractors, all for a price.  The president of Canada's most important consulting/engineering firm, SNC-Lavalin, Pierre Duhaime, was ousted over the debacle of alleged bribes paid to secure a Libyan contract under the then dictator and now dead, Muammar Gaddafi. Now he has been arrested in relation to a possible bribe paid to Arthur Porter the highfalutin ex-director of McGill university in relation to winning the contract for the billion dollar plus super hospital project in Montreal, which Porter was overseeing. Questions surround $22 million dollars in missing money and when the police got involved, Mr. Porter skipped town in disgrace, now holed up in the Bahamas, refusing to pay back the hospital for other monies he owes. It's a real kettle of fish!

• Quebec's largest construction conglomerate, a multitude of companies run by the infamous Tony Accurso, is alleged to be a criminal enterprise. The high-flying, twice indicted, construction kingpin used to wine and dine public officials on his yacht in the Caribbean. He is facing possible jail time in regards to various alleged illegal schemes employed by his companies to defraud the taxman and for a multitude of successful overpriced bids on public contracts, secured through collusion with public officials. Mr. Accurso has already paid millions to the Canada Revenue Agency to settle past crimes, with predictions of more to come.

• By the way, the Montreal office of the Canada Revenue Agency (Canada's version of the IRS) was discovered to be riddled with employees on the take. These auditors would turn a blind eye to millions of dollars in tax transgressions, all for a cut. Link

• Then there are accusations against a former senior Liberal party fundraiser, Pierre Bibeau, the ex-husband of then serving Liberal party cabinet minister Line Beauchamp, who is accused of accepting an illegal $30,000 cash payment for the Liberal party. It led to his suspension from his very senior job at Loto-Quebec, the state run gambling agency, itself accused of fraud by a disgruntled ex-employee.  

• Recently, Michel Samson, the verificator-general of Quebec complained that there is a lack of competition in the acquisition of software by the various government contracts. In analyzing a sample of the tenders, he found that in almost half the cases, only one company submitted a bid. This should be no big surprise, over two years ago I reported that;
  

  "Perhaps the most egregious abuse is that which takes place in the civil service where contracts subject  to the tender process are also said to be rigged. A software developer recently confided that he was asked to make an uncompetitive bid so that the favoured vendor would win the bidding process. "Don't worry" he was promised, "Your turn will come." Read my post, Octoer 2010,- In Quebec, the Fix is always In

On and on it goes, stories of corruption that would be unbelievable if presented in a Hollywood movie, with enough miscreants to fill a fictional rogues gallery.

Let us not forget the wholesale waste and mismanagement, while not always illegal, represents a callous disregard for the public purse.
The egregious financial mismanagement of Concordia University, the extremely poor judgment of the Board of Directors of McGill in unanimously appointing a two-bit crook like Arthur Porter as President.
Let's not forget the cynical disregard of the public's interest by the Anglophone/Jewish chairman of the Old Port of Montreal in publicly supporting his Catholic/Francophone serial expense-account abusing president.

How about the generally Protestant English Montreal school boards sending employees to Hawaii and the Dominican Republic in the middle of winter to 'study' conditions, or the Catholic French school boards sending teachers on Yoga excursions to fancy hotels, all on the arm of taxpayers.
Read: Quebec Anglos Prove We Are Pigs as Well

In all this, the only thing that all the players have in common is that they generally have nothing in common.
English, French, Ethnic, public servants, politicians of all stripes, professionals, blue collars, business people and clerical, all the various religions and races, it seems that everybody from all walks of life seems to have a hand in the sorry saga of Quebec corruption.
This is one gravy train that is an equal opportunity employer!

So let's have no more finger pointing and scapegoating, Quebecers from all walks of life are equally to blame and as the famous cartoon character  POGO said;
 "We have met the enemy and he us"

Quebec and Newfoundland Deserve Each Other

Watching the unfolding stupidity of Newfoundland's project to bypass Quebec and build its own underwater electricity transmission line at a staggering cost should have us wondering if the Newfies are cutting off their nose to spite their face.

It's hard to justify the staggering cost of the project estimated by the Newfoundland government at $6.8 billion dollars (which will probably balloon to $10 billion as experience teaches us) when there is a perfectly good alternate route through Quebec available at a fraction of the price.

There's little doubt that Newfoundland got the crappy end of the stick in the last deal they negotiated with Hydro-Quebec, the Churchill Falls agreement, back in 1969 and it's understandable that they remain deeply humiliated by the stupidity of the then Premier Joey Smallwood in selling out Newfoundland power at a fixed price without insisting on any type of an escalator clause.

The error was Newfoundland's, not Quebec's.
What would you think of the negotiating skills of a person who would agree to work for a salary that  would never increase, FOR THE NEXT 65 YEARS!!

"Let me explain how it was that the Churchill Falls agreement was arrived at in an unfair way. Geography made that possible. To get Churchill Falls power to market, it had to cross Quebec. But, Quebec in the 1960s said "no" to the free movement of electrical power.
Quebec said, you can sell the power to no one but us. You cannot "wheel" Churchill Falls power through the Hydro Quebec power grid. And, you cannot build a power line to reach markets in the US. We had no choice but to accept Hydro Quebec as the middleman.Once this was clear, Hydro Quebec could ... and did ... dictate the terms of the Churchill Falls agreement." Brian Tobin, then Premier of Newfoundland

Ya think?
Why on Earth would Hydro-Quebec allow Newfoundland to use their transmission lines to get a competing product to market?  If you owned a fruit store, would you allow a competitor access to your shelves to sell his apples?
While Newfoundland claims that it was hoodwinked, it really has nobody to blame but itself.
It started building the project and invested $150 million dollars without having any way to get the power to the United States other than through Quebec.
Without an agreement with Hydro-Quebec, Newfoundland was looking at a bankruptcy and so was forced to sign the poisonous deal that gave Quebec almost all the profits.


Read a previous of mine, where Danny Williams savages Quebec over the deal: Danny Williams Bashes Quebec.

It's understandable that Newfoundland feels outrage, the $1.5 billion in profit that Quebec makes on Churchill Falls power every year represents 20% of the Newfoundland budget. I wonder how Quebecers would react if they were shipping off the equivalent of 20% of its budget or  $15 billion a year!

But no one can fault Quebec for keeping the money, no province in their right mind would re-negotiate the deal without a quid pro quo..
And so Newfoundland has decided to 'punish' Quebec by building an alternate transmission route for its new power projects, an utterly foolish gambit based on spite.

Quebec has offered to negotiate a 'fair' deal for the new power, but won't put the Churchill Falls deal on the table, a stupid error of its own.
Surely Quebec could have offered a change in the old Churchill Falls deal as long as it profited even more from the new deal, a sensible solution for everybody.
The money saved by not building the alternate route could easily compensate everybody.

Quebec's error in all this, is its failure to understand that Newfoundland needs to save face over Churchill and its refusal to open up the old deal actually works against its own interest over the long-term, if and when the new Newfoundland power comes to market.

And so the two feuding provinces are working to hinder each other, instead of working together for the enrichment of both.
Hence the title of this post... Quebec and Newfoundland deserve each other.

Now lost in all this is the fact that it isn't even certain there will be a market for all this new power, but let's save that discussion until later and return to the feuding provinces.

Stephen Harper made a campaign promise to offer a federal government loan guarantee for the project and fulfilled that commitment in a speech in St. John's last week.

This precipitated howls of protest from Quebec, which of course doesn't want Ottawa to aid a competitor to Hydro-Quebec.
The Quebec politicians were quick to complain that Hydro-Quebec never benefited from any help from Ottawa and so its help to Newfoundland is unfair competition.

Of course this argument is specious, Ottawa sends tons more money to Quebec than Newfoundland and this even on a per capita basis.
Its like your daughter complaining that you are unfairly favouring a sibling because you are paying his grocery bills, while not paying hers, this while she fails to consider that you are paying her rent but not his.
It's moronic.

Quebec politicians are screaming blue murder that Ottawa is subsidizing Newfoundland electricity, when in fact all it has done is provide a loan guarantee, which doesn't cost anything if the debt is repaid according to the loan agreement.
Quebec is arguing otherwise, that Newfoundland is in fact getting a billion dollar subsidy from Ottawa, which is hogwash.

Let me explain it simply.
Your daughter comes to you and asks for a loan guarantee for a car she wants to purchase. If you sign the agreement and agree to repay the loan if she defaults, the bank will give her a lower interest rate, saving her about $3,000 over the term of the loan.
Since you know your daughter to be trustworthy, someone fully able to make the payments because she has a good job, you consent to help her out.
Your son finds out about the loan guarantee and complains that his sister is getting a $3,000 benefit while he is getting nothing.
You try to explain to your mathematically-challenged son that it is not you paying out the benefit, but rather the bank and at any rate, if he would like to buy a car, you'd be happy to sign a loan guarantee for him as well.

NOT FAIR! claims your son and tells all his friends that he is being screwed.

If you think the above is a farce, listen to Quebec's Environment Minister Martine Ouellet, make the exact same argument, all with a straight face.

 

Either the minister is making a sad attempt to mislead voters or she is just an idiot, confusing the money Newfoundland saves, as money Ottawa spends.
I give a lot of credit to the Radio-Canada interviewer, who was trying hard to keep a straight face, attempting to explain how utterly stupid the minister sounded.

All this being said, there is one thing that the minister said later in the interview, that is true. The high cost of producing and transmitting the new electricity may make the whole project uneconomic.

North American electricity prices have collapsed as skyrocketing shale gas production has brought to market gazillions of cubic feet of cheap domestically produced natural gas.

It isn't at all a given that there will be a market for Newfoundland's expensively produced Hydro-electricity.

Let us hope that the Newfoundlanders and Labradorians rethink their project which will only be viable if the electricity is sent down the Quebec transmission network, which would seriously limit any risk.

I would hope that Quebec rethinks its hardass position over the Churchill Falls agreement, especially if giving a little means getting returned a lot.

I would hope that cooler heads would prevail, but alas, as readers probably suspect, it isn't going to happen.

French versus English Volume 69

PQ minster drummed out of office, humiliating Pauline in the process.

Bon débarras!

Back in September, when Pauline Marois first named her cabinet, I told you that Daniel Breton, the new environment minister was lying to the public in claiming that he had no association with a certain environmental group.

"In another case of skeletons in the closet, Minister of the Environment Daniel Breton denied being a member of the lobby group 'Sortons le Québec du nucléaire' despite his name being listed as being a member of the advisory board on the group's website.

Within hours of the controversy, his name was removed from the website, but not before I grabbed a Before/After screen shot." Read the post

At any rate, it seems that the little tidbit above, isn't the only thing Mr. Breton lied about, his past indiscretions were exposed by the media who did a little checking on their own, discovering a litany of past offences.

"According to newspaper reports Breton has a string of criminal convictions dating to 1988 for defrauding the unemployment insurance system, and as recently as 2007 was fined $400 by Revenue Quebec. La Presse also reported that Breton was convicted in 1997 for driving without a license.
Meanwhile TVA reported that Breton was evicted from his apartments in 2005 and 2009 for non-payment of rent. Photographs from his landlord show hundreds of empty bottles of wine left in the apartment Breton was forced to leave." Read the rest of the story

One of his speeding tickets was for driving 275 kph on Highway 401 in a Porsche, which is a bit strange for an environmentalist.
What I'd like to know, is what kind of person who can get his hands on a Porsche, lives in a $450 apartment and gets evicted for non-payment of rent?
By the way, he was also convicted of driving with a suspended license after losing it because of numerous driving infractions.
And lastly, what does it say about an Environment Minister who doesn't recycle 500 beer and wine bottles, leaving them to the landlord to deal with upon his eviction.
Come to think of it, what kind of pig accumulates 500 empty booze bottles in an apartment?

It didn't take long for Breton to become the butt of many a joke.

Ygrek.com

Mr. Breton's resignation sparked opposition charges of incompetence, after Pauline first defended Mr. Breton, her communications director assuring reporters that she was well aware of his past.

That changed the next day when Marois threw him under the bus, claiming that she really didn't know about his past.
When reporters asked about the contradiction between her statement and that of her communication director, Marois brushed it aside saying that her aide 'thought' Marois knew about the past. Ha!
Perhaps it was all a dream, like the reappearance of Bobby Ewing on 'Dallas'

Now questions are being raised over the vetting process, after all, candidates are supposed to be screened by the party before they are even allowed to run for office. Also on the hot seat is the provincial police, the SQ who are also supposed to vet potential cabinet ministers, lest they embarrass the government with past foibles.

One thing I can tell you, this could never happen in the Liberal party where potential candidates are given a thorough vetting, which includes voluntary disclosure about criminal convictions, lawsuits past and pending, unpaid debts, alimony payments, investments, etc. etc. The courts are also consulted for convictions and lawsuits and a credit check is performed.

As for Mr. Breton, the most cursory of investigations would indicate that he is defiantly R9 material, so don't be surprised if other stories emerge about other unpaid debts or obligations in the near future.
It's my experience that deadbeats cast a wide shadow. 

Quebec Crime Commission embarrasses itself

Joël Gauthier, reputation besmirched by crime commission

It seems that the Charbonneau Commission, charged with exposing crime in Quebec's construction industry has run up against a brick wall, out of witnesses and plagued by a spate of key resignations.

And so France Charbonneau put the commission on hiatus until the end of January in order to develop witnesses and lines of attack.

That being said, the last witness heard was a doozy, an investigator for the commission itself, whose testimony has brought down a  firestorm of criticism because it may have besmirched the reputation of some innocent people.

The commission investigator read into the record a bunch of names, people who had met at the hitherto hoity-toity and very private Club 357c in Montreal. The list of names was developed from the log book of the club, which notes the time, date and participants of anyone meeting or dining at the club.
Some of those meetings interested investigators, who suspected that the participants weren't discussing the Beef Wellington, but rather matters of corruption.
Certainly the majority of meetings, like that between city of Montreal employees and indicted construction magnate Frank Catania were suspect, but others not so much.

The main criterion for having a meeting flagged by investigators is that one of the participants be someone that the commission has strong feelings about and that the other be related to the construction industry or government.

Now this investigative method is a valid tool, but should never be entered as testimony unless the corruption link is confirmed with other evidence.

This was not the case and the commission in effect, read names into the record without having any other evidence as to the nature of those meetings.

Club 357c

Now one person so-named, Joël Gauthier, the ex-president of the AMT, a regional transportation agency was livid at the cavalier manner in which he was outed for his meeting with the infamous Frank Catania. Link{Fr}
Mr. Gauthier went on the offensive appearing on all the news channels to defend his good name and offer his side of the story.
Mr. Gauthier claimed that the meetings were 100% kosher, an effort to settle out of court, a case where Catania was suing the AMT, the agency he ran, over a piece of land.
The fact that no settlement was achieved and that the case proceeded, more or else proves Mr. Gauthier's contention that he wasn't being paid off.

An ex-minister in the Charest government,  Line Beauchamp, was so upset with being named by the commission that she was brought to tears in a radio interview, defending her honour.

    If you don't speak French scroll to the last 30 seconds of the interview where she breaks down and cries.   Read the story

After the list of names was read into the record, a bunch of politicians, from all parties, including Pauline Marois were quick to go public with the information that they too had meetings in the club.

It seems that the good will the commission fostered is gone with the media treating the Commission harshly for it's McCarthy-like 'guilt by association' tactics.

As for the exclusive 357c club itself, it's likely to become a lot more exclusive in the future, after all, what public figure or businessperson of good reputation, would want to be caught dead in it.
Perhaps Mr Catania will resign his membership, advising the club of his decision using the old Groucho Marx quotation;

“ "PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.” 

At any rate, what is glaringly obvious is that the Commission has not made any headway in linking the former Premier Charest's government with corruption.
Perhaps there is no headway to be had.

It isn't a case of saving the best for last, the commission has admitted that its cupboard is bare.
Perhaps it's time to pack it in?

PQ backs off election promises

Fearing a parliamentary debacle, the PQ is backing off almost every election promise it made.
First it was the Health tax that was off and then back on again and now we are hearing that the PQ will shelve plans to increase mining royalties.

As for applying Bill 101 to cegeps and daycare, thus barring allophones from attending, both those projects are off the table.

Concerning Pauline's plan to use the Caisse de dépôt  (Quebec's public  pension fund manager) for political purposes;

"As Premier Pauline Marois was setting out an ambitious blueprint for Quebec's economy Friday, two major bond-rating agencies issued a warning over one of her election promises.

 As outlined in its election platform, the newly-elected Parti Quebecois government may seek to broaden the Caisse's mandate to further contribute to the development of Quebec's economy and enterprises, which could test the independence of the Caisse."
Link 

I guess that plan is also out the window.

The PQ government has also backtracked on the proposal to withdraw funding for private schools if they fail to accept an increased amount of students with learning difficulties.

And of course its plan to remove the Canadian flag from Parliament also fell by the wayside.

So far the PQ has actually achieved nothing, except bringing in a budget that raised taxes. Well-done!

The company you keep

Another contest eligibility rules for "The BARE The Adventure Contest"
Take a look at the company we keep... sheesh!

"ELIGIBILITY: The Contest is open only to individuals who are eighteen (18) years or older at time of entry and scuba certified (must provide copy of certification card). Excluding residents of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, the province of Quebec, Sudan, Syria, and any other jurisdiction where this contest is prohibited.  Employees of Bonnier Corporation and its parent companies, subsidiaries or agents, their immediate families (defined as parents, children, siblings, spouse and grandparents) and those domiciled with any of the foregoing are not eligible." Link   (thanks to David for the link)

French dominates at small companies

"New studies on the language of work in Quebec suggest a Parti Québécois proposal to extend francisation rules to businesses with less than 50 employees, to protect Quebec’s official language, might be unnecessary.
A study based on polling of 4,357 Quebec residents from January to May 2010 by Léger Marketing found that companies with less than 50 employees “generally operate exclusively in French.”
The study found that for companies with 50 employees or more, which are required to have a francisation certificate attesting they operate in French, 86 per cent used French most of the time; while at companies with fewer than 50 employees, not regulated by Bill 101, 88 per cent spoke French most of the time." Link

Bits'n Pieces

The OQLF doesn't like the term"Vélo boulevard" because it is a direct translation of "Bicycle Boulevard" used widely in the USA.
It wants a new Quebec-made French term... Link{Fr}

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"Adam van Koeverden found himself up a creek without a paddle after overreacting to his McMaster Marauders getting spanked on the football field.
Everyone who uses social media has posted, Tweeted something regrettable. Like a lot of people in Southern Ontario, the four-time Olympic kayak medallist got swept up in cheering for McMaster, his alma mater, to defend its Vanier Cup title against the colossus Laval Rouge et Or. " Link

Here's another picture, shot at that same football championship game.

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Gilles Duceppe was cleared of any legal responsibility by the House of Commons after an investigation was launched over paying his Bloc  Quebecois political staff out of his office budget.

While the committee found his behaviour unethical, there was nothing in the rules against the practice, which will henceforth be banned.

 

A beaming Duceppe told a reporter in an interview that "everything that is not illegal, is legal!"
Talk about "Two Solitudes," look how the French media and the English media covered the story

"Former Bloc leader misused House resources, secretive Commons board says"  Globe and Mail

"Gilles Duceppe blanchi"  Journal de Quebec

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Here is what a Quebec 'Subway" shop claims, (as the sign says)  is a "HEALTHY BREAKFAST" 

FailQc.com

"Un poutine avec ça, Madame?" 

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IT seems that TVA, Quebec's most popular TV network has climbed on the bandwagon in claiming that proper names that sound English, are illegal without descriptors. For Shame!

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Talk about irony,  Eric Lindros married a francophone Quebecer and had the wedding ceremony in Montreal.

"Lindros is probably the most hated athlete in Quebec City after refusing to play for the Nordiques after they selected him with the No. 1 overall pick at the 1991 NHL entry draft."  Link .

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SCOOP!

You heard it here first.

Remember the story of Officer 728, who was suspended after a video was released showing her abusing a couple of musicians in the Plateau neighbourhood in Montreal,  a short while back?  Link

Well, the police never dropped the phoney-baloney charges against them, no doubt to hold it over them in exchange for not suing the heck out of the Montreal police.

The intimidation didn't work and the four have secured the services of one of Montreal's best and most expensive criminal lawyers, who is none too amused by the police shenanigans.

He is planning a major attack against the police case next week, I was promised a blockbuster announcement.

Have a very good weekend !
Bon fin de semaine!

Quebec Propagandists Get a Dose of Reality

Separatist lies meant to confuse Quebecers

In the dizzying battle of facts, statistics and disinformation, Quebec separatists are making a valiant attempt to confuse Quebecers into believing what clearly is not true, that is, the fantasy that Quebec contributes more to Canada than it gets out.

It is an interesting propaganda battle, led by its champion confusionist, Jean-François Lisée, a man who has made a career out of trying to convince Quebecers that they have no debt problem, that their finances are in order and would be in even better shape, should Quebec achieve independence.

But convincing Quebecers of this has been an uphill slog, partly because what these confusionists are selling is not true, but mostly because the facts and figures bandied about, are hard to understand, especially by a public that is largely challenged when it comes to understanding the complicated details of GDP, Money supply, debt versus GDP, deficit spending, transfer payments, etc.etc.

Considering that most Canadians can't balance their chequebooks and that about one-third of us are counting on a lotto jackpot or big inheritance as part of the long-term plan for financial success, it's no wonder that we have a problem with these complicated financial concepts.

And so the issue of whether Quebec gets a good or bad financial deal out of Canada seems to boil down to a simple argument, which is of course the famous 'equalization payment," an annual cash transfer from Ottawa to Quebec, which stands today  at almost $8 billion.

Let me first illustrate how two different sides can view the same situation, both perfectly valid. 

Credit to Michel Patrice; Equalization payment per capita and population

Both these graphs are statistically valid, but offer different views of the equalization payment, the first one represents the argument that federalists like to use, while the second, more sophisticated view, is one that paints Quebec in a better light.

Such is the stuff that propaganda wars are about.

For the last couple of years, federalists have been successfully lording the equalization payment over the heads of Quebecers as proof that Quebec gets more out of Canada than it puts in.

Simple and direct, it may not tell the whole story but it's something the public can understand and as long as federalists keep hammering home the idea that Quebec is a loser province that must take charity from the rest of the provinces, the issue is largely settled and is likely the chief reason sovereignty support has sunk to historic lows.

Here's a cartoon by YGRECK, Quebec's best editorial cartoonist, that reminds us how entrenched this feeling of beholden to Canada is in the Quebec psyche.

The Maple Leaf to remain at the National Assembly --- "This one, anyways!"

Recently, separatists have made a valiant effort to disparage the idea of Quebec as a have-not province by characterizing the equalization payment as irrelevant, considering that Quebec sends more taxes to Ottawa than it receives back, including the equalization payment.

It's an argument that is gaining traction among sovereigntists because it is simple enough that those inclined to do so, can latch onto the concept.

It has become a favourite talking point of Pauline Marois, the fact that Quebec sends a surplus of taxes to Ottawa and so is forced to pay for the oil sands development in Alberta, F-35 warplanes, shipbuilding programs outside Quebec, etc. etc., expenditures that she contends Quebecers don't need, want or benefit from.

But finally, someone has attacked this argument and has produced a decent study debunking this myth.

In an article entitled Financially, Quebec depends more and more on Ottawa, written by Editor in Chief of the French language magazine "Les Affaires, Jean-Paul Gagné puts paid to Pauline's fantasy that Quebec is shortchanged,

Here are a few extracts, but you can read the whole fascinating article, which goes into some detail,  HERE{Fr}

"Pauline Marois tells Quebecers that Ottawa draws $50 billion per year out of the pockets of Quebecers and Quebec would be much better off if it kept the money. Don't believe these claims because they are false. According to the Economic Accounts Income and Expenditure Quebec Edition 2011 (Table 5.2, pp. 84-85), published by the Institut de la statistique du Québec, in 2010, Ottawa collected  $40 billion from Quebec. This is 10 billion less than the figure spread as truth by the separatists to advance their cause. And as no one contradicted the number,  many probably believe they are telling the truth...." 

To darken the portrait, the separatists argue that Ottawa uses "our money" to subsidize oil sands, subsidize Ontario's auto industry, etc.. Is it necessary to recall that the taxes paid by these industries and their employees allow Ottawa to fund its programs, such as equalization, which Québec is a major beneficiary.... 


"... separatists are careful to ignore programs administered by Ottawa for the benefit of all Canadians, and especially ignore the fact that individuals from Quebec, companies, the government and through various federal agencies have received payments in 2010 totalling $58 billion or $18 billion more than it sent to Ottawa."

 There it is, a clear and concise statement from someone who seems to know what he is talking about, the fact that Quebec pulls out a lot more from Canada than it puts in, something we all believed intuitively.

And so, for every dollar Quebec sends to Ottawa it receives back $1.45
  
Readers are always asking, "What can I do to counter sovereigntist propaganda?"
Spread the word.   
Whenever discussing Quebec, remind others about this disparity.

Things go viral quickly and a message such as this, is powerful and simple, something easily remembered. 

Again, For every dollar Quebec sends to Ottawa, it receives back  $1.45  

Spread the word!