According to the Premier, the day after sovereignty, Quebec would become impoverished and would have to sacrifice social programs, public services and this, according to him, for at least ten years. Link{fr}
Actually, I think the Premier is being a bit generous in surmising that the pain of sovereignty would be limited to a decade, but alas that is neither here nor there.
Convincing hard-core sovereigntists that independence would be disastrous is like telling suicide bombers that there aren't 72 virgins awaiting them in Heaven, it is sadly the same mentality.
I am not writing this piece in order to offer up facts figures and otherwise concrete proof of the economic folly of sovereignty, because I've done it before as have countless others.
Read:
UQAM's Nutty Professor
PQ To Canada... How's About "Friends with Benefits?"
The Trouble with Sovereignty
The Trouble with Sovereignty, Part 2
Seven Dirty Lies of the Sovereignty Movement
For die hard sovereigntist fantasists, alternate facts, fake news and pipe dreams offered up by cynical and dishonest separatist leaders are just the medicine to countervail the gloom and doom predicted by nasty federalists like myself.
Listening to the likes of ignorant blowhards like Mario Beaulieu or the doufus Martine Ouellet talk economics makes it easy lampoon separatist leaders as dummies, but other, more credible separatist leaders like Jacques Parizeau, Lucien Bouchard and economist Jean-Martin Aussant, all militated for sovereignty under the guise that Quebec would be just fine. It is the dishonesty of the educated and well-informed that continues to irk me to no end.
There have been precious few scholarly attempts by the sovereignty movement to show how an independent Quebec would fare after sovereignty, with good reason as you can imagine, and so Quebeckers have been left to their own devices to figure out the truth.
Over the decades since the last referendum, the message of Quebec poverty after sovereignty has finally sunk in, regardless of the nonsense sovereigntist leaders spew with those on the fence in the debate have largely jumped over to the federalist side, the reason sovereigntist support has plummeted in recent years.
The sovereignty movement has descended into a sad spectacle of the blind leading the wilfully blind with leaders and followers determined to ignore reality with deception and alternate facts.
Arguing economics is almost impossible with die-hard separatists, as they are expert at offering an alternate reality in which the fiction that Quebec sends more to Ottawa than it receives and that Quebec is always short-changed on federal programs.
It plays well to the converted because of the simplicity of the message, the time-honoured 'done-me-wrong' refrain.
I'm reminded of a fishing trip I made with a sovereigntist friend right after the failed referendum of 1995. We ventured up past Dolbeau in the Saguenay region to an area known as ZEC, a government controlled wilderness.
Over the campfire, my friend J.P got around to talking politics and asked me about the economics of sovereignty and if Quebec could be actually be viable after independence. It was an honest question from a friend who viewed Quebec Independence not as a slight towards Canada, but more like a grown up child leaving the family home to strike it out in his own, with continued love and loyalty to the family.
He started quoting economic numbers, the oft repeated scenario in which Quebec could make it economically with only a small drop in standard of living.
I realized then that it was well nigh impossible to argue the point with someone convinced and so took another tack, a fact something that sovereigntists willingly ignore.
How many Quebecers would leave after sovereignty and what would the economic impact be?
This is the argument that no sovereigntist will dare broach because it is in essence the straw that will break the sovereigntist dream.
Every time a sovereigntist talks about the economic future of an independent Quebec, ask him or her how many people will leave and you'll get the blankest of stares. It is the one factor sovereigntist cannot face.
Will it be 5%, 10%, 15% or even more? Nobody knows.
But one thing I know for sure, anything over 5% will send Quebec over the economic waterfall into the abyss.
Now many sovereigntists have told me that if Canada won't play ball on economic conditions after sovereignty, like open borders and trade, the province can always renege on its portion of the national debt.
First let me say that Canada can very well survive that with the yearly savings on equalization payments to Quebec, easily carrying the additional debt.
But the opposite argument applies, what if it is Canada doesn't play nice?
What if Canada makes an offer to individual Quebecers to move to Canada, with perhaps a five or ten year tax holiday? How much would that accelerate desertions?
What if Canada does the same for business, offering sweetheart terms and conditions which are really no skin off its nose since these businesses are lost to Canada already. Quebec would be blackmailed into granting the same concessions, further weakening its tax base.
Can it happen? Of course it can.
After the American War of Independence, the British offered loyalists land holdings in Canada as a reward for their service. About 10% of those living in the newly independent 13 colonies left and settled in Canada, some returning to England.
Every time a sovereigntist mouths off over the viability of an independent Quebec, ask him or her how many will leave.
It represents the coup de grace of the sovereignty dream.
