Entitlism and Quebec's Ruling Elite

Jean-François Lisée, Mr. No-Show

As you probably are aware Jean-François Lisée, a minister in the PQ government recently came under criticism for 'double-dipping,' that is accepting two government paid salaries at the same time.

Lisée is currently paid about $165,000 as a minister in the Quebec government, but was collecting until now, another $8,667 dollars a month from the University of Montreal. 

Within a day or two of the story breaking in la Presse, Lisée renounced the second salary, claiming that although he was entitled to it, he would donate the money to charity. Link

Lisée was hired as directer by the University of Montreal's  Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) in 2004 and because he demanded a salary that the university could not meet (because of university remuneration guidelines,) the school and Lisée concocted what can only be characterized as an unethical and underhanded, yet perfectly legal scheme, to pay him more money than the rules dictated.

The university agreed to credit Lisée a 'thirteenth' month of salary for each year worked, to be paid at the end of his employment as some sort of exit payment, something that did not contravene the letter of the guidelines, but certainly the spirit.
And so when Lisée left the university after eight years, the school as per the agreement, continued to pay his full salary for another eight months.
Those eight months were to carry him until February, 2013.
When all this hit the fan, Lisée decided to donate the future payments to charity, but not what he was already paid, so all we are talking about is the two months of these $8,667 payments, not that big a deal when you consider the taxes owing.

Instead of complaining over the double-dipping, which is entirely legal, nobody has challenged the university or Lisée on the ethics of the whole dirty deal.
It isn't much different from Tony Soprano 'convincing' a construction company to put a couple of his 'boys' on the payroll, without of course, the pesky obligation to show up to work.
Anyway you slice it, it is called a no-show job, a crude shakedown.

And let us remember, Mr. Lisée's $104,000 salary at the university was basically for part-time work. He continued to write for L’actualité magazine and for Le Journal de Montreal, as well as finding the time to write four or five books, as well as appearing on television regularly as a political commentator, as well as hosting his own television show, Planète Terre.TV
Link{Fr}
It seems that Lisée was collecting a salary from every direction, in the true spirit of MUHC consummate gonif Arthur Porter.

Oh and by the way, for his eight years of 'work' at the university, Lisée has earned himself an indexed $28,000 pension for life, which he is eligible to collect later his year!

It is these type of stories of naked greed and entitlement of those at the top of our society, that has those at the bottom asking why they should finance the orgy of entitlement.

Can one really fault students for refusing to accept increased tuition fees when the universities, both English and French engage in deceitful over-spending wherein the top echelon are paid outrageous salaries complete with immoral and unjustifiable pensions.
Before we anglos get on our high horse, Concordia university wins the prize for the most irresponsible board of directors offering the most outrageous severance packages to those in high places.
Think I'm exaggerating? Read this;

As university president, Judith Woodsworth has made an unlikely return to Concordia as a professor, despite having been compensated over $169,573 in “administrative leave pay” to help her get back on her feet.
On Dec. 22, 2010 Woodsworth left the university at the urging of the Board of Governors halfway through her term in office, receiving a $747,045 severance package that stands out as one of the hallmarks of a governance crisis that continues to plague the university. $900K Later, Judy’s Back in the Classroom

But exorbitant exit payments and double-dipping are part of Quebec society and since those who benefit from the practice are those that create the rules, it's easy to understand how we got to the point where a public employee can collect two generous and  indexed pensions, while the poor saps in private industry receive crumbs when they retire.

Let us understand the concept of double-dipping.
It is the act of either having two government or quasi-government jobs at the same time, or more likely, collecting a publicly funded pension (and I don't mean old-age security) at the same time as receiving a paycheck from the government or quasi-government agency.
It also means accepting two distinct publicly-funded pensions at the same time.

Let me give you some examples;

Ex-Premier Jean-Charest will collect a $100,000 plus pension from the Parliament of Canada when he turns 55 later this year.
When he turns sixty, he will be eligible to collect a Quebec government pension for his service in the National Assembly, which also works out to over $100,000 a year.
All this is indexed and so for the rest of his life, Canadian and Quebec taxpayers will be paying out two pensions, the equivalent of over $200,000 towards his retirement. Not bad.....
In fact the two pensions add up annually  to more money than Charest ever earned, even in his best year!
That's double-dipping.

A politician who serves for thirty years in Parliament in Ottawa will collect one pension, while a politician who serves fifteen years in a provincial Parliament, in addition to fifteen years in federal Parliament will collects two pensions and receive about 50% more in combined revenues at age sixty-five.

Consider Mr. Charest, (who I am only using as an example) who after his political career can choose to return to public life, perhaps as a government consultant or a member of the diplomatic corps, thus earning a third source of revenue from the government.
Triple-dipping!.....Call it a Dairy Queen special!

At any rate, let's go on.

There are to my knowledge at least three members of Quebec's National Assembly who are already collecting a publicly paid pension, while being paid to serve as an elected  member.
Guy Ouellette, Robert Poeti and Jacques Duchesneau are all retired law-enforcement officers who are each collecting a very generous, indexed police pension.
In Duchesneau's case, the pension is north of $100,000, according to my calculations.

The third type of double-dipping is what Mr. Lisee was doing, collecting two public salaries, in his case,  one from the university and one from the National Assembly.

But perhaps the most galling type of remunerations are the famous transition payments where some  receive a payment upon termination of employment, regardless whether the recipient was fired or left of his or her own accord.

Now I can accept as reasonable an exit payment paid to a defeated politician whose sole source of revenue is the paycheck received as an elected official. It is rough to know that with each election one can lose his or her job rather abruptly. 
Transitioning out of public life and being forced to find employment can be stressful and a safety net payment providing a replacement income for up to a year can be justified.

But these payments are also offered to public officials who quit their jobs of their own volition, something that is insulting to taxpayers. Some have jobs lined up the next day!

Even disgraced politicians who resign in the face of a public backlash are eligible for up to one year's salary.
And so the indicted ex-mayor of Mascouche, the soon to be indicted ex-mayor of Laval and the never to be indicted (but disgraced) ex-mayor of Montreal will all receive payments of tens of thousands of dollars.

The very worst exit payments that I can think of, were paid to four characters that left their jobs in a cloud of disgrace, having cost taxpayers dearly for their incompetence, mistakes or alleged criminality.

After the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec's financial meltdown in 2009, whereby the public pension plan lost $40 billion dollars, or about 25% of it's value, Henri-Paul Rousseau, its boss, quit to take another position with Power Corporation a few months later.
Despite the utter financial disaster that he oversaw and ignoring the fact that he quit, Rousseau received an exit payment $380,000

Readers might recall the Îlot Voyageur fiasco where costs for the new UQAM building in Montreal exploded from the projected cost of $392 millions to $728 million.

The rector of the university, Roch Denis, was investigated for fraud, but in the end was not charged and the whole affair was charged to incompetence.
He left in disgrace, taking with him an exit payment of $173,000.
The other two UQAM directors who were blamed for the financial disaster by the auditor-general of Quebec also received generous exit payments upon their forced departures. Link{fr}
And remember, these three were responsible for the over $300 million in cost overruns!

And then there is the famous Claude Blanchet, husband of Premier Pauline Marois who as boss of a Société générale de financement (SGF) between 2001 and 2003 ran up losses of  $775 million, this while offering generous bonuses to himself and other highly ranked employees!

When he was shoved out of the job early, he 'negotiated' a sweetheart deal for himself, including a year's salary of $257K and a lifetime pension of $80,000!  Link{fr}

It's a bit ironic that Pauline Marois and the PQ raised a ruckus over the Liberal Party's practice of topping off Jean Charest's salary to the tune of $80K a year, considering that Quebec taxpayers will be paying the indexed pension of $80,000 a year to Pauline's jewel of a husband, a man who headed a dysfunctional agency that blew three quarters of a billion dollars of taxpayers money on his watch, FOR THE REST O HIS LIFE!

As for conclusions, I'll leave that up to readers, in the comment section.

Letter to the Foreign Policy Association

Readers have been discussing getting involved and contacting interested news organizations and/or government or quasi-government organizations re our particular situation here in Quebec.

One of our readers did just that and sent this letter to the Foreign Policy Association, an organization in New York that Marois addressed on a visit last week. Link

To whom it may concern:

I understand Quebec Premier Pauline Marois addressed the FPA very recently to attempt to entice investment in Quebec.

I was born, raised and educated in Quebec, from kindergarten through university.  My mind to leave Quebec was made up when I was just 16 years old, in grade ten high school.  That was in 1974, the year the first language legislation was passed, called Bill 22.  The most embittering aspects of that bill were that French was required on all business signs, and cruel language tests were imposed on little children to determine if they would be able to attend English school, or have to go to French school.  The examiners were so biased that children who made a single mistake on the test were considered not to be proficient in English and thus forced to go to French school.

The separatist government, the same one Pauline Marois  leads today, was elected for the first time in late 1976.  About three months after being elected, that government tabled its first piece of legislation, Bill 1, the Charter of the French Language.  It was so racist and stringent, it had to be toned down, and by May 1977, new modified legislation, a.k.a. Bill 101 was tabled and passed into law on August 26th.  The reason for passing it into law then was to ensure its more stringent educational aspects could be law before the start of the first full school year.  That law made French school mandatory, except for children who were legally attending English schools when the law came into force and for future children, only those whose parents had at least six years of English elementary schooling, in Quebec, could apply to place their children in English schools.  This excluded children coming from other provinces in Canada, plus other English speaking countries, like the U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.

In 1982, Canada repatriated its own constitution (formerly our "constitution" was the British North America Act of 1867, the year of Confederation), and through strenuous constitutional challenges, much to the separatist government's dismay, children coming to Quebec from other provinces in Canada where they were attending English schools were allowed, by the grace of the Supreme Court of Canada, to attend English school in Quebec.  By the way, to attend English school in the first place, the parent(s) have to apply for a "Certificate of Eligibility" to attend English schools.  Failure to do this disqualifies the child from being able to attend English schools.  Since the law came in, enrollment in English schools has dropped from about 250,000 in 1977 to less than 100,000 today.

Please realize that anyone considering relocation to Quebec (but not the rest of Canada) from the U.S. will not be able to enroll their children in English schools, except if adequate proof could be provided their stay will be for two to three years, and believe me, the separatist government is very strict and fanatically adamant about this proof.  This concludes the ugly history on trying to get one's children enrolled into English instructional schooling, public and private.

Next, I'll move into aspects of doing business in Quebec.  Please be aware that this separatist government is about as anti-business as one you will ever encounter.  First of all, if the employees manage to get a union into your business, LOOK OUT!  Replacement workers, whether scab (outside) labor or management replacing striking workers is strictly against the law.  Companies with 100 or more employees currently (but soon to be reduced to 25 or more employees) have to obtain a Francization certificate that confirms the business is complying with all aspects of French as the everyday language in the business, from the shop floor into the board room.  If you want employees who speak languages other than French, it will be incumbent on YOU to prove the employee is required to use the other language(s) in that position.  If you err and hire someone who speaks only French, or proves to be inadequate in other languages, you cannot release that employee.  It is against the law to fire an employee for the sole reason he doesn't speak any languages other than French.

If anybody, and I mean anybody at all, is dissatisfied with the level of French being offered to customers, or communicated to employees, is not to their satisfaction, they could report it to the Office Québécois de la langue française [Quebec Office of the French Language], a.k.a. the OQLF or  "language police."  This could be for the most minuscule violation, usually what some people perceive as "illegal English".  Please look at the following hyperlink: http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/05/pq-pauline-marois-bill-101/ 

Here is another, and I can tell you now this lunacy has been going on for 40 years: http://putbackflag.posterous.com/oqlf-intimidates-and-harasses-montreal-ben-je    In 1998, CBS newsmagazine 60 minutes did a segment on the lunacy: Part 1:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOGgYaqwhg  and Part 2:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=Iki-pwrCpE8&feature=endscreen  In the second part, the OQLF representative in the piece, Gerard Paquette, lied through is teeth about a parrot that spoke English in a pet store.  A complaint was indeed filed, but Paquette was too embarrassed to admit it.

The players have changed.  Mordechai Richler, an internationally famous author of many books plus magazine and newspaper articles is now dead and the government players have changed, but the ugly game has not changed at all.  Worse yet, the separatist government is becoming even more zealous and bold in its enforcement of the language legislation.  They aren't as polite as they used to be.  Too, corporations in Quebeec at one time used to be able to file their Quebec tax returns in English or French.  Not anymore!  See the following on the Quebec government's official website: http://www.revenuquebec.ca/en/a-propos/organisation/politique-linguistique.aspx  Believe me, they will do their darnedest to get you to file any documentation, even if allowed in English, in French.  The only reason, as mentioned in the piece, why English is allowed for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is because the federal government agreed to allow Revenue Quebec to act as the collecting agent for GST remittances.  Federal tax returns and any other information may be filed in English or French.

Aside from language and labor legislation, Quebec is still the most meddlesome in terms of business regulation.  Very highly overregulated, but that's beyond the scope of this message.  If you want to look at more of why investment in Quebec is not a good idea, I refer you to a very reliable blog called No Dogs or Anglophones: http://nodogsoranglophones.blogspot.ca/  The author of this blog is consulted by government, and you should know that while the editor/creator of this blog keeps his identity secret, he is consulted by government all over Canada, and for all he puts in his blogs, he hyperlinks to all kinds of newspapers, TV segments and a wide array of other periodicals.

Finally, another e-mail follows this one.  I'm sending you an attachment that came out two days after the 60 Minutes segment back in 1998.  It too is quite an eye-opener.

If any of your U.S. members want to discuss Quebec issues further, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Regards,....

(name withheld on request)

Go ahead readers, is it a fair assessment?

French versus English Volume 70

PQ patronage appointee not up to the job

"I have a lot of confidence in Nicolas Girard's abilities," Transport Minister Sylvain Gaudreault said. Link{Fr}

"How many chief executives does Montreal’s commuter-train authority have?
The Agence métropolitaine de transport says it has just one: Nicolas Girard, a former Parti Québécois MNA named to the post after he lost his seat in September’s election.
But when it looks at the AMT’s upper echelons, the opposition Coalition Avenir Québec sees two: Girard, plus Paul Côté, a veteran Via Rail executive whom Girard replaced.
When Girard took over in October, he kept Côté on as a “special adviser.”
“By paying two CEOs at the AMT simply to reward a friend of the PQ regime, the government of Premier Pauline Marois goes farther than the Liberals in the field of patronage,” CAQ transport critic Éric Caire said Monday." Read the rest of the story    Alternate Link

Double-dipping PQ Minister shamed into renouncing 2nd paycheck

It  seems that PQ minister Jean-François Lisée was collecting two big fat paychecks at once, all of course on the back of Quebec taxpayers, that is until the public disclosure shamed him into renouncing his second paycheck.

Mr. Lisée is being paid about $165,000 as a minister in the new PQ government, but is also collecting a $100,000 salary from the University of Montreal in a convoluted deal that sees him getting paid after he left the job.  The payment was part of an avoidance scheme. It seems that the university couldn't pay Lisée as much as he demanded because of salary rules, so agreed to pay him a 'thirteenth' month each year, to be paid at the end of his employment (or something to that effect) The whole scheme sounds about as kosher as a ham sandwich Link

PQ lowers level for bilingual status for towns to 40%

"It’s no longer 50 per cent, but 40 per cent — and even then, it’s not automatic. Quebec’s minister responsible for the anglophone community, Jean-François Lisée, said he has convinced his cabinet colleagues of the need to soften the rules under which a municipality loses its official bilingual status under the Charter of the French Language.
“I argued with others that it should not be at 50 (per cent),” Lisée said following a speech to the Jeune chambré de commerce de Montréal on Monday.
“It should be at 40. I felt it was important to make it rather difficult to take away the status, which is worth a lot.” Link

OQLF harassment..What is Chunky-monkey in French?

"Off duty, an OQLF officer waits in line on a busy afternoon in the summer. When he orders, he also points out that the bilingual chalkboard menu should be displayed in French.

I politely mention that while there is English, the exact same menu and prices are displayed in significantly larger and bolder characters in French right next to it.

The off duty officer begins to raise his voice, mentioning that the law requires 100% of our displays to be in French. While making a scene in front of other customers, he storms out of the store, threatening us that we will be hearing from the OQLF.

Approximately a week later, we receive a letter from the OQLF stating that they suspect us of breaching the “Charte de la langue française”, and that they will be sending over an officer shortly.

Read the entire article...fascinating
Listen to a CJAD radio interview with the manager
(credit; Lord Dorchester)

In another OQLF story, Quebec convenience store deppaneur, Couche-Tard was put on the infamous OQLF blacklist for not getting its Francization certificate in order.The chain has about 900 stores operating in Quebec.
At least it's name is french..... Link

Quebec Corruption watch... this week

On Wednesday 140 police officers carried out 44 search warrants in relation to phoney billing scams, a practice whereby construction companies use fictitious invoices to defraud the tax department. Link

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There was some clarification this week about a story about disgraced ex-mayor of Laval Gilles Vaillancourt whose cousin was reported to have tried to flush money down the toilet.

It is now reported that Francine, the wife of the ex-mayor brought a shoebox of money over to Ginette Vaillancourt's adjacent swanky condo for safe-keeping.

When police arrived at the apartment building to conduct a raid on Gilles Vaillancourt's home, the cousin panicked when she saw all the police cars and tried to flush the $20,000 down the toilet. Link

You might recall that when police raided two safety boxes belonging to the ex-mayor, they discovered over $100,000 in cash!

An investigative television show reported that the Mayor shipped money to Switzerland via a friendly banker in the Caribbean. The show also reported that corruption has been rampant in Laval for decades. Link

On Thursday, police raided offices of the new mayor of Laval, Alexandre Duplessis who is a crony of the ex-mayor. The raids are in relation to the skyrocketing cost of the yet to be built hockey arena that the city is supposed to build for the farm team of the Montreal Canadiens, now playing in Hamilton. Link{Fr}

Keep tuned!

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"Three former high-ranking Quebec police officers are the subjects of an investigation into allegations of criminal activity.
The investigation involves former Quebec provincial police director Richard Deschênes, as well as Jean Audette and Steven Chabot, who were responsible for criminal investigations for the Sûreté du Québec.
Chabot is retired, but Deschênes and Audette were both relieved of their duties when provincial police head Mario Laprise alerted Public Security Minister Stéphane Bergeron.
Bergeron told a news conference Wednesday that the allegations came to light when Laprise was doing a routine check of the accounting books, and discovered some unaccounted for money." Link

For Deschênes, it's been a mighty fall.
He was fired as Chief of the provincial police force a month after the PQ took power with many in the media alleging that it was payback for the Keystone Kops misadventure at the Club Metropolis where during an attempt on Pauline Marois' life, the police utterly botched the security detail. Deschênes had two years left on his contract and so was humiliatingly demoted to finish out his term. Now he's suspended pending the outcome of the investigation. More payback?

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It seems that after finally coming on board and supporting the Charbonneau Commission, the QFL,  Quebec's largest union, has gotten a case of  cold feet.
Largely involved in the construction industry, it seems that the revelations at the commission looking into corruption in that industry is hitting the union too close to home.

 "The Charbonneau commission is meeting some resistance on the part of the Federation of Labour (QFL), its affiliate, the FTQ-Construction and the Solidarity Fund, in collaboration with the investigation concerning them, learned Le Devoir.

According to reports, the investigators Committee has met resistance and a lack of volunteers who could explain situations that raise doubt, especially with regard to the possible infiltration of organized crime. So far, more than six people have received a summons to appear before the commission Charbonneau in the coming months." Link{Fr}

PQ calls on citizens to rat out English

"The Parti Québécois government is calling on all citizens to act as “sentries” in defence of the French language, sniffing out businesses that fail to respect a newly enshrined right to live and work in French.
As she tabled the PQ’s “new Bill 101” Wednesday, Diane De Courcy, the minister responsible for the French Language Charter, acknowledged the government does not have the resources to enforce the law adequately.
When an immigrant convenience-store owner is unable to serve customers in French or an employer unjustifiably requires a worker to speak English, it is up to people to complain to authorities, she said. Read the rest of the story

Montreal lags badly in tall buildings

A report published by the Council of Tall buildings and Urban Habitat shows just how badly Montreal is falling behind other cities in Canada. Montreal has now fallen to third place behind Calgary, which has twice as many tall buildings.
 

Click on diagram to enlarge

One of the most telling facts is the average age of these tall buildings. In Montreal, the average age of the city's skyscrapers is 36 years old, while in Toronto, it is only 16 years and in Calgary it is only 19 years.
At present Toronto has15 skyscrapers under construction, the most of any city in the world!
How many are under construction in Montreal? ..... zero.
This will mean  that Toronto will have 45 skyscrapers to Montreal's seven by 2015.
Draw your own conclusions.

Montreal has placed only one building in the top ten highest buildings in Canada and that building is in tenth place.

Click on diagram to enlarge

Read the article.

et cetera....

"The more time francophones spend with their anglophone neighbours, the less they worry about losing their first language, says a new survey.
The surprising finding, which seems to contradict the notion that francophones living in urban areas like Montreal are concerned about the increasing use of English in their midst, was revealed in a poll conducted by Léger Marketing for the Association for Canadian Studies." Read the story

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A few days back, in the comment section, one of our prolific commenters "ED" said this;
"When a lie is told over and over it becomes reality in the minds of honest men. people say it must be true, I've heard it before. Unfortunately it is still a lie."

Here below is a perfect example of how a lie can snowball. You  might remember last week, I posted a subtitled video of an interview with Quebec's Resource minister who told a Radio-Canada interviewer that Canadian taxpayers were on the hook for 900 million for a loan guarantee for Newfoundland's new electricity project in Labrador. The interviewer tried to correct the minister by pointing out that Ottawa wasn't spending anything, just guaranteeing a loan.

That lie has now gone mainstream. In an article in a Quebec City newspaper, Le Soleil, this paragraph led a story about Quebec's betrayal by Ottawa.

"Ottawa has decided to create another precedent, this time in the field of hydro-electric development, announcing a financial contribution of more than one billion dollars in support of the 514,000 citizens of Newfoundland, the shareholders of the company State Energy Narco." Link

The writer goes on to say that this $900 million financial contribution to half a million Newfoundlanders would be the equivalent of $15 billion to Quebec's 8 million residents.
And that is how a lie can grow....

But I'm not surprised that the newspaper printed such utter rubbish.  I guess any newspaper that allows the hilarious gaffe of  "Narco" instead of Nalcor" isn't much on fact-checking!

At least some La Presse reporters get their facts straight. Link{Fr}

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It seems that Prime Minister Harper has taken an example from Madame Marois and humbly admitted a gaffe;

"It was wrong to appoint an auditor general who is not bilingual, Prime Minister Stephen Harper now reportedly admits. According to Montreal newspaper La Presse, the prime minister told his Conservative caucus last week he made a mistake last year when he appointed the English-speaking Michael Ferguson to the job, and indicated the government would support the NDP's bill requiring officers of Parliament to be bilingual before their appointment. Link

In the article cited above, the Toronto based website ran a poll of its readers asking;

"Do you think the auditor general should be bilingual"

At the time I researched this article, almost two to one said that the auditor general didn't have to be bilingual....Hmmm.  Link
The results didn't surprise me much, but one thing that I found curious is that 2% of readers who responded, clicked the "I don't know" button.
The question is, what kind of idiot responds to a voluntary online poll to register no opinion?

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CLICK to try it out!

"NeoSpeech, an innovative text-to-speech (TTS) solution provider, has released a new artificial Text to Speech voice Chloe, who will speak Canadian French. Chloe was born after years of intensive research on Canadian French language, voice recordings by professionally training voice-over actors, and synthesis and NLP (Natural Language Processing) by R&D speech experts." Link

The software reads web content out loud, phenomenally well.
 I went over to the site to try out the new French reader, but alas it is not available yet to test.
 I tested the English reader to see how the software worked.
After choosing a female voice, I typed in a few swear words that the voice repeated perfectly. (Okay, I couldn't resist)
YIKES... It then occurred to me that there are  a lot of perverts who would love to get a women's or man's voice to repeat out loud what is typed!
Yes, here is the link again, for the third time.. Link

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Spendthrift Minister

The Minister of Cultural Affairs Maka Kotto is in hot water for wasting taxpayer money by flying  22  cultural representatives attached to Quebec government’s delegations around the world, for what was basically a 'meet and greet.'

“It was false to report that my Ministry paid $64,000 for the meeting. It cost about $39,000 and the money didn’t come out of other programs,” Mr. Kotto said. However he failed to mention that the amount paid by his department didn’t include travel costs paid for by the Ministry of International Affairs....
“At a time when this government is asking all ministries to cut costs, the only good thing they can think of doing is to bring-in cultural delegates from abroad, pay their hotel rooms, pay their meals only to tell them that their budgets are being cut,” said Liberal critic for economic development."  Link

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You might want to check out this new Facebook group;

The New Province of Montreal/La Nouvelle Province de Montréal

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.....and finally

Charbonneau Commission firming up witness list for new year

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!
BONNE FIN DE SEMAINE!

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?