Quebec's Nanny State Running out of Gas

In her  inaugural  speech as Premier of Quebec, Pauline Marois outlined her government's plan for the next legislative session and while the media focused on her agenda of fighting corruption and strengthening language legislation, buried among the more controversial themes was this bizarre statement that caused hardly a ripple in the press.

"A parliamentary commission will be created to study the relevance and impact of a law which would regulate book prices. The Government wishes to support authors, publishers and booksellers from Quebec who can not compete against the big box stores that offer discounts from 25% to 30% off the suggested retail price of bestsellers." Link{Fr}

Yikes!!!!
What Pauline has proposed is more interference by the government in the free market, something that nine times out of ten makes consumers big losers and which enriches special interest groups unfairly.

Of everything Pauline has said, this more than anything else defines the PQ's philosophy of governance, which is state intervention in just about every aspect of our life.

Because the sovereignty and language debate takes up practically all the political air, little or nothing is ever discussed on the issue of these government interventionist policies.

Of course we in Quebec are painfully aware that we are the most heavily taxed citizens in North America and that our salaries are not keeping pace with gains made in other parts of Canada.

As you can see in the chart above, Quebecers make less and pay proportionally more taxes than most other Canadians.
But that is only half the story.
Quebec families, already handicapped by less disposable income, face the double whammy of higher prices in the marketplace, attributed to the high consumer taxes imposed by a desperate government in search of revenues.
Consider just one element, Quebec's 9.5% sales tax as compared to Alberta's 0% tax. This one tax alone can remove an additional $3,000 from the average family wallet, something Albertans don't face at all.

But a third element, the paternalistic desire by government to protect local markets, is another costly element driving down disposable income in Quebec.

Let us start with the very subject Pauline brought up in her speech, French language books, wherein she proposes to protect small book stores from competition from the big box stores that typically sell new arrivals at 20-40% off list price.
For Pauline this 'unfair' competition puts local booksellers at risk, so she proposes that no retailer be allowed to discount these new arrivals for a certain period of time.
Sounds like a plan....

Now anybody who has ever purchased a French language book knows that the prices are very high compared to English versions, no doubt because of the limited printing runs.
Take for example, one of the hottest (no pun intended) bestsellers on the market, 50 Shades of Grey which sells in paperback for $9 at Amazon.com while the French version, Cinquante nuances de Grey, where no paperback is available, sells for $22.99.

Perhaps someone might remind Madame Marois that books are not gasoline, which must be purchased locally.
Unless she intends on telling Amazon.com in the United States that a product may not be sold to Quebecers because of protective pricing, her plan is doomed to failure.
And no, dear readers, she cannot enforce a floor price on Amazon, there is the little problem called NAFTA.

The larger issue is how in good conscience she can raise the price of books that are already astronomically expensive?

Quebec remains North American champion in imposing floor prices, sometimes with perverse effects.
In Quebec,  milk production and retail prices are controlled by the government. The consequence of course, is that consumers in Montreal pay in the neighbourhood of $1.50 per litre, while New Yorkers pay about 78¢, a whopping difference of over 90%!
You can see the minimum prices that the government sets for milk HERE

The same goes for cheese products and especially fresh butter which sells for about $5.75 a pound in Quebec, while in a Costco in the USA, it can be found for $2.00.
The sad part about all this is that Quebec dairy farmers don't really benefit, they've got to pay interest on heavy loans that they needed to take out in order to buy expensive milk production quota.

Read an interesting report written by the Montreal Economic Institute about the problem of supply management in the agricultural field. Download

Minimum prices can only be imposed on those things not easily purchased outside Quebec and so that is why gasoline remains so expensive. Even going across the border makes no sense when you've got to spend time and burn gas just to get it.
And so the Quebec government has always been comfortable charging huge taxes at the pump.

Recently, regular gasoline sold for about $1.25 in Montreal, 99¢ in Calgary and about 77¢ in Miami.
You can see the minimum prices that the government sets for each region HERE

The Quebec government is very protective of small gas stations, making sure they make a profit by ordering a minimum price that no retailer may sell for less, even if they wanted to. I once filled up at the Costco gas pump in St. Jerome and was surprised to see this letter attached to the pump;

Dear, Costco members,

The Regie d'energie of Quebec has recently imposed a 3¢ per litre increase on gasoline sold in St.Jerome.

We disagree with this artificial increase imposed on the citizens of St. Jerome for the benefit of gasoline retailers.

For this reason, we will be donating 3¢ per litre sold, to the Fondation de l'hopital regional de St. Jerome. 

Costco Wholesale will continue to supply members the very best quality/price value for all their purchases.

Incredibly minimum prices even apply to beer!  Link{fr}

Those who defend this 'Quebec model' always use the argument that Quebecers accept higher prices and higher taxes because the province is more socially responsible and provides citizens more entitlements than the rest of Canada.

The argument might hold water but for the fact that it is simply not true that through taxes, Quebecers themselves fund government programs such as seven dollar-a-day daycare, free prescription medicine, extended family leave, incredibly low tuition for higher education, etc. etc.
If Quebec ran a balanced budget and was not the beneficiary of so many billions in equalization payments, it might be a reasonable and fair societal choice.
But such is not the case, Quebec's nanny state has been largely funded by huge deficit spending and subsidies from other Canadians, something that the majority of Quebecer refuse to acknowledge.

Accepting free money from other Canadians to pay for Quebec entitlements may be one thing, but to ask future generations of Quebecers to pay for today's generation of entitlements is selfishly outrageous. 

 But it appears that this orgy of taxing and spending is drawing towards an ultimate day of reckoning.

In  spite of the spending cuts and tax increases announced by the PQ government in the last budget, there will be no balanced budget in the near future as government revenues aren't keeping pace with the rise in expenditures.

The problem of falling revenues can be attributed to the high taxes and crushing regulations imposed on Quebec's business community. With open borders, companies that are not geographically sensitive, can and will locate where they get the best deal.
Already Quebec is obliged to spend six times more than Ontario (per capita) on handouts to businesses in order to entice them to settle and remain in Quebec.

Recently American retailer TARGET, announced with great fanfare that the company was expanding to Quebec, buying out the failing Zellers chain.
What few in the media were willing to report is that the company set up its giant distribution centre just outside the Quebec border in Cornwall Ontario, in order to avoid Quebec taxes, regulations and yes, language legislation.
They aren't alone, Walmart also does its Quebec distribution through a giant facility in Cornwall.
These are the lost jobs that we see, but the greater tragedy is the tens of thousands of jobs that never were, as companies rule out Quebec as a potential base of operations.

It is these tiny cuts that add up. Here a few hundred jobs, there a few hundred jobs. A head office moves and poof!... perhaps five hundred or a thousand jobs are lost or never created.

And let us not forget the head office and corporate exodus that devastated Quebec in the seventies and eighties. The damage done was inestimable.
Take for example the most famous of these corporations who fled the province, Sun Life of Canada.  Today the 8,000 head office jobs in Ontario means an above-average paycheck supporting over 32,000 families and if we are to add those ancillary jobs created in other companies supporting the Sun Life concern, it amounts to well over 20,000 jobs, enough to support a city of 80,000 people in Quebec.
And in addition to all the money these Sun Life employees spend in their communities, consider all the taxes remitted to the government including income tax, sales tax, property tax, etc. etc.
And that is the story of but one company, the same story has played out a hundred times over.

In the end, we are where we are.
The nanny state that overtaxes and overburdens business with regulation, coupled with repressive language legislation has set Quebec on a course of permanent economic decline. With its high-handed and foolish decision not to offset these job losses by exploiting its fossil fuel wealth, the die is cast.

As Quebec becomes more and more inhospitable to wealth creation, it is inevitable that family income will rise more slowly than in other provinces.
Faced with decreasing salaries and decreasing taxes, the government increases tax rates and jacks up taxes on consumer goods to make up the difference, a disastrous scenario.

And remember, when defenders of the Quebec nanny state tell us that families have less personal resources than in other provinces because of choices about social issues, it is just plain not true. Debt and Canadian largess are to be factored in.

As Quebec reaches its debt and tax ceiling, taxpayers are going to be in for a shock if Ottawa cuts equalization payments significantly (which represents over 10% of the present budget) as is likely the case.

Looking forward to the gathering clouds of debt, overspending and diminished economic activity, it is painfully obvious that we are headed into our very own Perfect Economic Storm

Canada Oblivious to Anglo Destruction in Quebec

"Bill 14, if passed, would force the Quebec government to evaluate all of Quebec's 90 official bilingual municipalities and remove the special designation if "it considers it appropriate in light of all the circumstances."  Link

I'm  not sure the above statement is government policy or a media interpretation of the PQ's new law which seeks to 're-inforce' the French language by further persecuting its English citizens.

Click to download a PDF of  Bill 14 in English

Whether the new law will be applied as described remains to be seen, but who can deny that regardless, the statute hangs like the Sword of Damocles over our community.

It reminds us that the law in Quebec protecting English rights in any particular town or city requires that the minority be the majority, a grotesque concept that defies the definition of what a minority actually is, a precept that utterly defies logic.

And so it appears that we are entering the penultimate phase of the struggle, a prelude to the very final showdown.
If the walls of Fortress English Montreal are successfully breached by a government bent on destroying the English community, it will mark  the beginning of the end of the language 'war,' one that is to be lost because the side with the power, the resources and the numbers, just plain refused to defend itself.

For those in the Rest of Canada who tell the Anglos of Quebec to get the heck out and surrender our homes and lives, I can only register my profound sadness at the betrayal.
It is a particularly bitter pill to swallow, this exhortation to cut and run,  a testament of cowardly abandonment.

It is as if a military commander has judged our forward position untenable and so strategically decided that withdrawal is the safest course of action.
If that is a metaphor that has credence, then how badly that commander has done his sums.

We are almost a million people.
More people than live in Ottawa, Winnipeg, all of Manitoba, or any of the Maritime provinces.
I couldn't imagine Canada telling the entire city of Calgary to abandon their home and move out without a fight. 

It is true that more than half our community has left Quebec under the relentless pressure of language  discrimination and visceral hate, the ongoing effort to linguistically cleanse Quebec of the English continues unabated with French militants at the barricades pushing for a re-doubling of the effort to rid us all for good.

All the while, Canadians stand by and watch the linguistic massacre benignly. 

Everyday for the last forty years, English Quebecers and their language have been characterized by their own provincial government, whether that government was 'separatist' or 'federalist' as an insidious threat to the majority, to be controlled like vermin, with a view to driving the numbers lower and lower to the ultimate  final solution.

How utterly incredible and sad to hear our fellow Canadians tell us that they would rather send a military mission costing billions and billions, not withstanding the countless lives wasted and ruined, to free Afghanistan from totalitarian rule, but somehow are not prepared to lift a finger to preserve the freedom of Anglophones to pursue their lives in peace and YES, in English, in a Canadian province that they did more than their share to build.

Worse in all this is the fact that Ottawa is actually financing the persecution, shipping billions upon billions of dollars each year from Canadians across the country to a government bent on destroying the vestiges of English life.

So thank you John in Vancouver, Mary in Edmonton and Richard in Peterborough for your overly generous tax contributions, sent to a province that uses this money to persecute and destroy your extended English family.

In the meantime, a snide and ungrateful Quebec recognizes this entitlement as an absolute birthright and mocks those Canadians who are so gutless that they would prefer to finance this cultural genocide, rather than rock the constitutional boat.

A harsh assessment?..I think not.

In all this, the separatists mock us, emboldened by Canada's weakness and so are encouraged to advance their cause in the face of so surprisingly little resistance.

Ironically, the very slightest pushback would send the separatists and language supremacists scurrying for cover, like rats in a dark room that suddenly has the light switched on.
When push comes to shove, Quebec cannot and will not stand up to a defiant Canada, the students demonstrated Quebec's true resolve. 
It is long overdue for the Canadian government to step into the Quebec language debate with it's own language legislation.
Simple amendments to the Official Languages Act can require towns and cities to provide English or French services where numbers reach a more reasonable percentage, perhaps 15% or 20%.
Legislation could be added to allow English or French signage to be protected anywhere in Canada and the right to receive or dispense alternate language services be enshrined.

If the separatists don't like it, they can have their referendum, one way or another it is high time Canadians face down that blackmail.
Canadians can no longer pay protection money to keep Quebec linguicists satisfied, it is undignified and cowardly.

Take it or leave it, it is up to Quebec to decide. My guess is that when push comes to shove, the majority will choose money and comfort over principle, it is the Quebec way.

The question I put to Canadians is simple, because decision time fast approaches.

Are you going to help us or not?

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.