Quebec Election: 4 Sep 12

[Old Sweat]

Please stop criticizing the PQ.  Please endorse their taxation proposals and laud them as fiscal geniuses.  Do so frequently, loudly, and openly.

Indeed! Why with a bit of encouragement they could easily surpass the fiscal achievements of the Bob Rae government in Ontario. I still shake my head in wonder at the statement of his finance minister that people do not mind paying higher taxes as long as the money goes for social programs. With a bit of effort the PQ could create a spending boom in the westbound rest stops on the 401.

 

[Good2Golf]

...With a bit of effort the PQ could create a spending boom in the westbound rest stops on the 401.

300 MilPoints inbound, sir! 

 

[Retired AF Guy]

Hoo-boy...here we go:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/quebec-student-group-wants-free-tuition-now-that-hike-is-off-the-table-1.967633

"I think it's a stark transition, I'm for it personally," says Jason Ghikadis, 30, a Univerisite of Montreal student in the faculty of music, who attended Saturday's protest.
"I think that realistically putting it in place ... will take a bit of time."

Sigh. Thirty years old and still a music student. I suppose it could be worse, he could be in basket weaving 101.

 

[a_majoor]

Sigh. Thirty years old and still a music student. I suppose it could be worse, he could be in basket weaving 101.

Well, perhaps he could do busking on those westbound 401 stops...

 

[Old Sweat]

A predictable item from the Sun News site re the apprehension of the business community. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act.


BRIAN DALY | QMI AGENCY


MONTREAL — Gas-exploration firms are mulling a massive lawsuit after Quebec's new separatist government suggested there will be no shale-gas drilling on its watch.

Sources tell QMI Agency the firms will demand compensation for the $250 million they have already spent exploring Quebec's significant gas reserves, should the Parti Quebecois impose a moratorium.

The industry was thrown for a loop last Thursday when Natural Resources Minister Martine Ouellet — on her first full day on the job — shut the door on further exploration.

"I don't see the day when there will be technology that will allow safe exploitation," she told reporters before entering her first cabinet meeting.

It's one of several moves from the Parti Quebecois that critics say will hurt Quebec's already slumping economy.

Earlier this month, even before Pauline Marois took office as premier, the Conference Board of Canada said economic growth in Quebec is well below the national average.

The think-tank blamed high debt, taxes and fees coupled with weak investment, low productivity and stagnant labour growth.

That hasn't deterred the PQ, a staunchly leftist party, from preparing the following measures:

- Income-tax hikes for Quebecers who earn more than $130,000 a year.
- Increased corporate taxes, plus capital gains taxes that would skyrocket to 75% from the current 50%.
- No economic development minister, with Marois choosing instead to split the file between three ministers.

The Quebec Employers Council, the largest business group in the province, expressed "deep concern about the negative impacts" of the PQ tax hikes, and economist Brigitte Alepin warns Marois could chase away the richest taxpayers.

"I am extremely worried," Alepin said this week. "The PQ does not realize that taxpayers are already sick of paying taxes. History shows that renegotiating the fiscal pact leads to deep crises."

Ouellet denied her government will be hostile to the business community.

"I would tell them not to worry," the former Hydro-Quebec manager said. "We want to develop natural resources in Quebec in the public interest and for that, we will work in collaboration with businesses."

 

[Rifleman62]

Bob Rae and the consortium of BC Premiers better watch out. Their records for destroying a province are about to fall.

The Parti Quebecois will soon be in first place.

The ROC must not be forced by the federal government to pay for the Parti Quebecois' ineptitude, nor Ontario's. Enough is enough

Surely you can't run a province into the ground with no consequences? Hold the equalization payments at the levels they were when the Parti Quebecois and the Ontatio Liberals were first elected. No increase, not even for inflation.

 

[a_majoor]

Perhaps the looming disasters will provide the opening to change the equalization "formula" to specify what is being paid for, what metrics constitute "success" and look to the provinces with the lowest cost/person for delivering a successful program as a means of calculating how much any province will get. Of course, using a 5 year average is probably a smart move as well, providing less opportunity to cook the books.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I almost hesitate to post this and I do so without comment because I don't live in Quebec and haven't even visited - not even across the river - in years; in fact, over the past ten years I've spent more time in any of Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Penang than in Montreal or Gatineau; but I wonder how well founded Barbara Kay's (obvious) fear and outrage, expressed in this article which is Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post, really are:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/28/barbara-kay-in-marois-montreal-the-sound-of-english-becomes-an-offence/

In Marois’ Montreal, the sound of English becomes an offence

Barbara Kay

Sep 28, 2012


I have lived in Montreal for almost 50 years. I arrived as a young bride just when the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) was beginning its campaign of terror in the service of an independent Quebec. I was pregnant with my second child when British diplomat James Cross and cabinet minister Pierre Laporte were kidnapped and Laporte killed.

During that terrible period, my Toronto family, appalled by news reports of bombs going off in symbolic anglo and federal sites – mailboxes, train station, the stock exchange – and fearful for our safety, kept wondering why we didn’t flee to Toronto. My husband was in the financial sector and could easily have had a job there.

But like everyone else we knew, we considered the FLQ a complete aberration from ordinary, peace-loving québécois, a kind of political virus that would pass. It did, with the help of the War Measures Act, which ruffled the feathers of liberal pundits, but made it easy to round up the miscreants quickly and suffocate the violent branch of the separatist movement.

I witnessed the rise to power of the Parti Québécois and, with their first victory in 1976, the great exodus of anglos, including three of my best friends, whose toddlers played with mine every day. Once again we weighed our options. And once again, partly because the PQ leader, René Lévesque was a true democrat, partly because it would have been a cruelty to take their grandchildren away from my aging in-laws, and partly because we simply loved Montreal above all other cities in Canada, we stayed.

Then there was the 1980 referendum. It was a tense period, but we had Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau on our side. Say what you will about Trudeau, on this file he shone. He faced down the xenophobic elements in the separatist movement with the contempt they deserved. The referendum was soundly defeated 60-40. A wave of relief surged through the province.

It didn’t last. The undemocratic Bill 101 made it clear that the English language was to be tolerated in Quebec, but only in a dhimmi capacity in this nation of two official languages. We swallowed that because we believed that once the French language was made secure, separatist fever would die down and we could get on with economic recovery from the devastation wrought by the referendum and the flight of people and capital.

The nightmare of the second 1995 referendum traumatized the anglo community, and the rest of Canada too. This time there was no champion on the federalist side. Jean Chrétien and his government were deer in the headlights. Lucien Bouchard’s demagoguery mesmerized the electorate. Only the threat of partition by the Cree in northern Quebec and passionately principled leaders of the anglo community prevented a separatist win. But by such a narrow margin that resentment and revanchism continued to flare for years by those who felt “cheated” of their victory by “money and the ethnics,” as drunken buffoon Jacques Parizeau put it on conceding the referendum’s defeat.

The trauma of the referendum cast a depression over the province for years. The passionate anglo leaders decamped in disgust. Another exodus, this time of anglo children – most of them ironically now bilingual -  starting careers and who had a choice, and voted with their feet. They now live in Toronto, Vancouver, New York and Los Angeles. Those of us who stayed are those who didn’t have options, or for personal reasons elected to get on with our lives and roll with the punches.

Things got better. The new generation of francophones were culturally confident and cosmopolitan in outlook. We thought separatism was dead and buried. But it is back with a vengeance. In order to win the last election in Quebec, PQ chief Pauline Marois knew she had only one option: to rally her anglophobic base. During the campaign she encouraged fear-based hostility to the English language in francophones. Now it was not enough that French was the official language in education and business and services; now anglos were criticized because it was not the “language of use” in their private lives. English was now an ugly thing in itself. It was an insult to the ears of francophones.

Yes, Pauline Marois got her election victory, even though it is a minority government, for which we federalists have pronounced ourselves – pathetically, over and over – grateful. But that is not going to be enough to drain the toxins this campaign has spewed into the air we breathe. Poisoned air is not good for grievance-collectors with poor impulse control. And now we are seeing the consequences of this irresponsible appeal to the dark side of human nature.

I have often expressed opinions that did not sit well with many québécois. But never before in all the years I have lived here did I ever fear a personal physical attack for what I thought. Today I am astonished and ashamed to say that here in Canada’s founding city, I rationally fear a physical attack for the language in which I express myself.

On the evening of September 22, Mr. G., a 17-year old young man was walking with his cousins in St. Léonard, an east-end neighbourhood in Montreal. They were speaking English. A young adult male confronted them and said, in French, “You’re not allowed to speak English here.” When the cousins attempted to move on, the thug attacked Mr. G with two punches to the face. The group then fled to avoid further violence.

This was not the first incident of this kind. On September 12, 48-year old Alex Montreuil was at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal for a CT scan. He went to the hospital cafeteria and ordered a sandwich. He says he explained to the woman making the sandwiches – in English – that he was violently allergic to tomatoes, and asked that she change the gloves she was wearing before making his sandwich in case there were traces of tomato on them from precious handling. She complied.

Montreuil was eating his sandwich in the company of a friend when a 30-something woman approached their table. According to Montreuil, she screamed in French, “Here we speak French, not English.” Montreuil says he responded, “In my city, in my country, I can speak the language of my choice.”

The argument escalated and the woman withdrew for a few minutes. When she returned, she threw a tomato sandwich at Montreuil’s face. Within moments, his face and body were swelling dangerously. The woman was arrested and may be charged with criminal assault.

We don’t know if the woman in the latter case was mentally disturbed, but it would be politically troubling even so, for mentally disturbed people take their “reasons” for their paranoia from vibes in the general atmosphere.

In any case, I actually can’t think of any time before Marois’ election campaign where, as in these two cases, private citizen A has criminally assaulted citizen B for speaking English to citizen C. The scenario suggests that English is not only a dhimmi language, but that it is some kind of virus, that can not only infect a person who is obliged to speak it, but can spread through the air to bystanders. I have a bad feeling about these incidents. I do not believe they are freak one-offs. I think they are trickledown effects from the licence Pauline Marois gave to francophones to feel offended by hearing English, and may be harbingers of worse to come.

René Lévesque and Pierre Trudeau would have been horrified by these incidents. They would have held a press conference immediately to denounce them as hate crimes. Pauline Marois is made of different stuff from her predecessors. She and her minions are an old guard, who know they represent the past, not the future, but desperate people seize on desperate means. I fear we are entering a new dark age in Quebec. I cannot summon my wonted optimism that this time reason will prevail.

bkay@videotron.ca

 

[Jungle]

Thank you for this article Mr Campbell. I am disgusted by what I read in this article, and can't help but feel depressed by recent events.
I was born and raised in Québec, and spent most of my life here; I did spend almost a decade living outside the province. Unfortunately, there are idiots in both communities; some of us have been told to "speak white" or "speak Canadian" in the past.  Nobody has a monopoly on stupid. There are plenty of francophobe comments even on this forum.
The problem is intolerance, on both sides.

I am tired of being painted with the same brush as separatists; the majority of Québec citizens are not separatists. The majority of us are happy in Canada, some (me included) think Québec is trying too hard to be different.

As long as we will give importance to the intolerants, we will not move ahead. And they are given a lot of exposure.

 

[Infanteer]

Good post Jungle.  Je suis d'accord.

 

[ModlrMike]

The lead edge of the wave?

Quebecers flocking to Ontario, real estate agents say

LINK

02/10/2012 3:45:49 PM
CBC News
Some real estate agents in Ontario say many Quebecers have been eager to leave the province since the Parti Québécois was elected in the last provincial election.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Is there any significance in the fact that neither Le Devoir nor le Journal de Montréal even mentioned the death of James Coyne? Are Canadian history and the lives and deaths of eminent Canadians so unimportant that they cannot even manage a short obit for Coyne?

"Two solitudes," indeed.

 

[ModlrMike]

Is there any significance in the fact that neither Le Devoir nor le Journal de Montréal even mentioned the death of James Coyne? Are Canadian history and the lives and deaths of eminent Canadians so unimportant that they cannot even manage a short obit for Coyne?

"Two solitudes," indeed.

Mr Coyne came through my ER as part of his last illness. At the time I didn't know who he was until it was pointed out to me. Now having researched the man, we are poorer for his loss.

 

[a_majoor]

Here is a different vision of Quebec; a "Big Quebec" that aspires to be all it can be rather than the current petulant, whiny "Little Quebec" of today. I wonder if any political party would step up and offer a vision like this to the voters as an alternative? The results might be very interesting indeed:

http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/10/24/the-next-alberta/

The next Alberta

Ted Morton, Special to Financial Post | Oct 24, 2012 9:08 PM ET | Last Updated: Oct 24, 2012 9:10 PM ET
More from Special to Financial Post
   
Natural gas might reverse Quebec’s declining influence

A made-in-Quebec natural gas industry would help to build a stronger Quebec. It would mean lower gas prices and huge savings for both households and businesses. This would make Quebec businesses more competitive, which translates into more exports, more jobs, and less out-migration.

Shale gas does not have to be at the expense of the environment.

Increased natural gas production is the most immediate and cost-effective way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in North America — including Quebec.

With respect to protecting groundwater and safe regulation of hydraulic fracturing, Quebec doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. Alberta is able and willing to share its experience and expertise in regulating fracking. Indeed, because of its unique geology, Quebec has the opportunity to set the standard for the cleanest natural gas production in North America.

Nor does development of Quebec’s shale gas have to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Quebec could proceed with a smaller pilot project to allow for research that monitors social, economic and environmental impacts. This phrased-in approach was recently recommended for New Brunswick.

Speaking as both an Albertan and a Canadian, I think shale gas resources offer Quebeckers a unique opportunity to change the trajectory of its political economy. Both globally and nationally, there is a direct correlation between economic strength and political influence. Put differently, economic weakness and dependency are not political assets, particularly for a jurisdiction that seeks greater autonomy in shaping its future.

At the end of the Second World War, Alberta was the poorest province in Canada, and had little to no influence in Ottawa. In 1954, distinguished McGill University professor J.R. Mallory described Canada’s version of two-tier federalism: “The superior size and bargaining position of Ontario and Quebec give them a status and an autonomy which are different in kind to those of the rest of the provinces.… The outlying provinces are still Canada’s empire and Canada is still, for many purposes, little more than the original area which it encompassed at Confederation…. ”

To drive home his point, Mallory observed that Alberta and the other Western provinces were “provinces not in the same sense as were Ontario and Quebec, but in the Roman sense.”

Today, Alberta is the wealthiest province in Canada. It now has influence in Ottawa (and on Bay Street) that is more commensurate with its contribution to Canada’s economy.

Over this same period of time, Quebec has gone from one of the two wealthiest and most influential provinces to a “have-not” province, the largest recipient of equalization payments, a province with a steadily declining percentage of Quebec MPs in the House of Commons and a corresponding decline in influence in Ottawa.

Albertans don’t like it when someone from outside comes to town and tells them how to run their business. I think I can safely assume the same holds true in Quebec. I understand — and respect — the maitre chez nous ethos.

So I will simply close by saying that I think since the Quiet Revolution, Quebec political leaders from all parties have not succeeded in connecting their shared desire for greater political autonomy with corresponding economic policies — policies that nourish and facilitate greater political autonomy.

Over the same period in Alberta, economic strength has contributed to its growing political strength — economic growth that has been driven by the development of its oil and gas resources.

Today, Quebec shale gas resources hold out a similar opportunity for Quebec — an opportunity that does not have to come at the expense of its environment or quality of life. Indeed, done properly, shale gas development could enhance both.

If Quebec chooses this path, I am confident that Quebec will find a helpful ally in Alberta — not just in sharing best-practices technology and shale gas regulation, but also in shaping the evolving nature of Canadian federalism in a direction that respects and expands the political autonomy of provinces like Quebec and Alberta.

Financial Post

Ted Morton, formerly a minister in the Alberta government in the portfolios of energy, finance and sustainable resource development, is an executive fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary. This is excerpted from a presentation to the annual meeting of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association in Montreal on Oct. 22.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Quebec will never escape its current Little Quebec straitjacket until the politicians Quebecers elect grow up. This article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act illustrates part of the problem - picking winners just because they are provincial:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/ceos-exit-thrusts-rona-back-into-quebecs-political-spotlight/article5176434/
My emphasis added

CEO’s exit thrusts Rona back into Quebec’s political spotlight

SOPHIE COUSINEAU
The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Nov. 09 2012

Knowing when to exit gracefully, before your colleagues not so subtly show you the door, is not something that is taught in school. Perhaps it should be.

It would have been useful to the former mayors of Montreal and Laval. Gérald Tremblay and Gilles Vaillancourt have just quit after being pressured for years to resign over city-hall corruption allegations. And it would have been useful to Robert Dutton, whose departure from hardware chain Rona Inc. was also overdue.

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, its most important shareholder, has stood by the troubled Boucherville, Que., retailer by raising its stake to 14.2 per cent shortly after Lowe’s Cos. Inc. unsolicited proposal was unveiled. But even the Caisse has lost patience after discovering that fierce competition and prudent consumers have floored the company’s profits.

Michael Sabia, the Caisse’s CEO, made it known to Rona’s board that he was utterly displeased with the retailers’ latest report card, according to a Caisse source. But the decision to oust Mr. Dutton to “boost” the fatigued retailer had already been taken at Tuesday’s board meeting, says a Rona insider.

It is somewhat ironic that Mr. Dutton held on for so long at a company that, as a teenager, he never wanted to work for. The young Mr. Dutton was opposed to taking over his parents’ hardware store in Sainte-Dorothée, north of Montreal. He finally did so when he left business school in 1977.

In his 35 years at Rona, he rose through the ranks, landing the CEO’s chair in 1992. He expanded Rona outside Quebec, transforming the regional retailer into the No. 1 hardware chain in Canada, with a 19-per-cent market share. Many industry observers doubted that this mismatch of corporate, franchised, and affiliated stores of all sizes would survive the arrival of big boxes from Réno-Dépôt (which Rona finally bought) and Home Depot.

Just as Rona was late to embrace big-box outlets, the company took a long time before recognizing that their deployment failed, as these vast stores struggled against a nimbler competition. Rona now hopes to woo customers and to boost its sagging profitability with small proximity stores that are to be run more efficiently.

It remains to be seen, however, if Rona’s next CEO will want to press on with that strategy. The decision will be up to Mr. Dutton’s successor, according to multiple sources.

The question is, however, whether Rona’s impatient institutional shareholders, some of which openly fantasize about a takeover, will – as the board hopes – wait long enough for the retailer to bounce back.

With news of Mr. Dutton’s departure came renewed speculation that Lowe’s would return with an acquisition offer that would be more formal than the $1.8-billion proposal the American chain floated last summer.

But Quebec Inc. won’t let Rona go easily. The Caisse refuses to speculate publicly on what it intends to do, should Rona receive an unsolicited offer. However, the Parti Québécois government is not so shy about its willingness to oppose a foreign takeover of Rona.

News of the bid for Rona at the onset of the last election prompted a swift reaction from then-finance minister Raymond Bachand, who declared the retailer to be of “strategic interest” to Quebec. And the PQ will not stand to be outsold by the Liberals on the nationalist front. In fact, in Quebec’s new National Assembly, “Don’t touch Rona” may be the only thing MNAs of all political stripes agree about.

Though he is working almost night and day to prepare the province’s next budget, Finance Minister Nicolas Marceau is following the situation closely, said his press officer.

Behind the scenes, however, the government is exploring different scenarios to give Rona a chance of proving its detractors wrong, according to a government source. Because the Caisse is technically at arms length from the government, Mr. Marceau is leery of asking the pension fund manager to intervene, as his predecessor did by pushing the Caisse to step in to prevent Rogers Inc. from acquiring cable operator Vidéotron. The province could, however, acquire Rona shares through its investment arm Investissement Québec. Another option is to change the Quebec law on companies to give boards more time and means to respond to unsolicited offers. But pushing this law through the National Assembly by a minority government that has a long legislative menu may prove difficult.

Conceding the sale of Rona to American interests while asking Lowe’s to guarantee jobs and spending in Quebec is considered a last resort. That is what happened when Loblaw Cos. Ltd. bought the Provigo grocery chain in 1998. At the Caisse’s request, Loblaw had to promise to maintain its $2.6-billion in annual spending, a figure that was verified by an independent accounting firm.

Mr. Dutton’s successor may not have 20 years to restore Rona’s lustre as an independent company. But if Quebec has its way, the next CEO will have a fair shot.

Picking winners, which is what this is all about, is a mug's game - especially when done by bureaucrats or, even worse, politicians. We did it for too long at the federal level and although the Feds and most provinces have broken the habit Quebec is still a major practitioner.



Edit: forgot to highlight the important parts ...  

 

[foresterab]

http://gold.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GI/20121115/escenic_5337929/stocks/news/&back_url=yes

NAFTA challenge launched over Quebec fracking ban
JEFF GRAY Law Reporter
14:17 EST Thursday, Nov 15, 2012
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Energy firm Lone Pine Resources Inc. is taking on Quebec’s fracking moratorium, saying it violates the firm’s rights under the North American free-trade agreement and demanding more than $250-million in compensation.

The company disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission this week that it has filed a notice of intent to sue the Canadian government under NAFTA’s controversial Chapter 11.

Those provisions of the treaty allow U.S. and Mexican companies to sue Ottawa if they feel they have been wronged by a government policy or action.

The company is just one of many affected by Quebec’s moratorium on the extraction of natural gas using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves injecting liquids deep into the ground. It has been controversial for its potential effects on the environment and drinking water.

According to Lone Pine, Quebec’s legislation passed last June also cancelled permits for oil and gas activity in areas directly below the waters of the St. Lawrence River – including the cancellation of a permit held by Lone Pine covering 33,460 acres.

Company spokesman Shane Abel said in an interview that under Quebec’s legislation, the company received nothing for the loss of the permit. “We think that the expropriation is arbitrary and without merit ... We think that’s a clear violation of the NAFTA agreement.”

The NAFTA challenge, levelled at a major environmental policy, could encourage critics of trade deals as they now question Canada’s proposed investor-protection agreement with China, which would extend similar rights to Chinese investors in Canada.

Lone Pine, which also has assets elsewhere in Canada, is headquartered in Calgary but is incorporated in Delaware. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange and Toronto Stock Exchange. The company was created in 2011, spun off from Denver-based Forest Oil Corp. in an initial public offering.

Quebec’s moratorium is meant to stay in place at least until the province completes an environmental review of fracking, expected in 2014.

and

http://gold.globeinvestor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/GI/20121115/escenic_5328498/stocks/news/&back_url=yes

Stornoway, Quebec resolve mine road impasse
BERTRAND MAROTTE
11:05 EST Thursday, Nov 15, 2012
 

Stornoway Diamond Corp. has struck an agreement with the Quebec government that breaks the logjam over completion of a 240-kilometre stretch of road leading to the company’s diamond mine project.

The project, an all-season two-lane gravel highway extending Route 167 further north to Stornoway’s Renard property in the remote James Bay area, ran into major cost overruns.

The newly installed Parti Québécois government, which is footing most of the bill, ordered a review of the infrastructure project, which ballooned to about $470-million from the initial 2009 budget of $260-million.

The delay threatened Stornoway’s target of starting mine construction in July 2013 and getting to production by 2015.

Meanwhile, critics slammed the project as a glaring example of the previous Liberal government’s largesse towards the private sector by assuming hefty infrastructure and electric-power costs for new mining and forestry developments in the north.

The original terms of the agreement between Quebec and Stornoway were for the company to contribute $44-million over a 10-year period – financed by a loan from the province -- to the highway extension, as well as pay out up to $1.2-million a year in maintenance costs.

Quebec, which also holds a significant stake in the company, was to pay the rest of the construction cost as well as cover overruns.

Construction on the road began in February.

Under new terms negotiated between the province and the company, Stornoway will take over responsibility for building the final 97 kilometres of the 240-kilometre long highway, but as a lower-cost “mining grade” single-lane road.

The government will pay for the first 143 kilometres of the road.

Quebec will also provide Stornoway with an unsecured credit facility of up to $77-million to complete the work.

The government says the new deal represents a $124-million reduction in its share of the construction cost.

Total costs for the entire road extension will come in at no more than $304-million, it said in a news release Thursday.

“We sat down with Quebec and negotiated a new framework. The obvious thing to do was for us to take over management of the process,” Stornoway president and chief executive officer Matt Manson said in an interview.

“We’ll be in full control of the development schedule for the first time.”

The Renard diamond property – Quebec’s first diamond mine -- is located about 250 kilometres north of the Cree community of Mistassini and 350 kilometres north of Chibougamau in north-central Quebec.

Pre-production capital costs are in the $800-million range.

“We view this agreement positively as it represents an important milestone in derisking the Renard diamond project and is indicative of the government’s ongoing support for the project,” Desjardins Securities analyst Brian Christie said in a research note Thursday.


Although these are two different resource industries working in different parts of the province there are severe implications with both articles due to political decisions made within in Quebec.  Plan Nord appears to be running into funding issues with reduced infrastructure being constructed now (while still an improvement also has ripple effects for other users in the area) while the oil and gas sector is starting to fight back over the fracking ban.  For comparision sake the Lower Athabasca Regional Plan in north east Alberta is a major policy management plan that superceeds other resource rights and compensation will be paid eventually to a number of industries due to the lands involved going from development lands to protected lands.

 

[a_majoor]

It's pretty hilarious when the various "nationalist" provisions of the law come back and bite their supporters in the a**:

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/12/12/pauline-marois-mansion-sale/

Marois wants to sell $6M Montreal home to European businessman, but law prohibits sale of agricultural land to foreigners
Tristin Hopper | Dec 12, 2012 10:36 PM ET | Last Updated: Dec 13, 2012 10:04 AM ET
More from Tristin Hopper | @TristinHopper


John Mahoney / Postmedia News FilesQuebec Premier Pauline Marois has a deal in place to sell her Île Bizard chateau for $6-million, but there’s a catch:
The buyer, a European businessman, is not a resident of Quebec and can’t legally purchase the property.

Last year, Ms. Marois and her financier husband, Claude Blanchet, accepted an offer from Patrice Rochemont on La Closerie, their 12,000-square-foot mansion, the newspaper La Presse reported Wednesday.

But because the 15.5-hectare estate is considered agricultural land — and thus cannot be owned by non-residents — the final sale remains pending, as Mr. Rochemont potentially faces months of dealing with Quebec immigration authorities to secure status as a permanent resident.

Clement Allard / The Canadian PressQuebec Premier Pauline Marois.Several provinces have provisions to protect agricultural land from foreign ownership, such as Saskatchewan’s rule limiting non-Canadian buyers to a maximum of 10 acres (4.05 hectares).

However, Quebec is believed to be the only province that blocks foreign ownership of agricultural land outright, barring explicit permission from the Commission de protection du territoire agricole (Commission for the Protection of Agricultural Land). Mr. Rochemond will also be required to live on the land for more than six months a year.

Related
Graeme Hamilton: Broken promises and questionable appointments blight PQ government’s first 100 days
Jonathan Kay: If Pauline Marois wants to recruit language ‘sentries,’ here are a few tips from George Orwell
Quebecers called on to act as french ‘language sentries’ as PQ government tables watered-down Bill 101

The provisions were introduced under the government of premier René Lévesque, the founder of Ms. Marois’ Parti Québécois.

During the 1976 election campaign, the PQ leader had warned that, due to foreign speculators, Quebec land was “literally being pulled from beneath our feet,” according to a January post on the Quebec politics website Vigile.net.

But the law may not have been entirely nationalistic: Less than 2% of Quebec is suitable for farming, compared to 12% next door in Ontario.

Furthermore, fears of dwindling farmland were high in the 1970s, particularly after megaprojects like Montreal’s Mirabel airport, an embarrassingly underused facility that was built on expropriated farmland rivaling the size of Montreal itself.

Located on Ile Bizard, a residential enclave just west of the Island of Montreal, La Closerie has been on the market since 2009, after Ms. Marois’ four children flew the nest.

“The children have moved out, so they made the decision as a family to live in [Ms. Marois’ Charlevoix] riding,” Pascal Monette, the PQ’s communications director, told the Montreal Gazette at the time.

LCNPQ leader Pauline Marois' Ile Bizard home. Last December, Marie Barrette, Ms. Marois’s press attaché, told the Journal de Québec there were no conditions that the buyer be francophone, but it would be “better” if they were.

“It’s nice. That makes one more in Quebec,” she said.

A now-removed listing by Sotheby’s International Realty calls the house a “very elegant French-style villa” and the surrounding property “an oasis of peace and tranquility that blends seamlessly into its natural surrounding.”

The mansion has been said to resemble the Château de Moulinsart, the country home of Captain Haddock, a character in the Tintin comic book series.

It has eight bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a Jacuzzi bathtub, guillotine windows and central air-conditioning, leading a Radio-Canada TV host to dub it “a political albatross” in regards to Ms. Marois’ efforts to connect with ordinary Quebecers.

Little is known of the would-be buyer. La Presse reported Mr. Rochemont was born in France, works largely in Belgium and is “extremely private,” according to his real estate agent.

National Post, with files from Postmedia News

• Email: thopper@nationalpost.com | Twitter: TristinHopper

 

[Edward Campbell]

Fiscal reality has a nasty habit of surfacing and kicking dunderheads ~ by which I mean (mainly) Francophone Quebec university students and the (many) professors who supported them* ~ as demonstrated in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/12/18/chris-selley-quebec-student-strikers-utopian-vision-crashes-to-earth/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Quebec student strikers’ utopian vision crashes to Earth

Chris Selley

Dec 18, 2012

Schadenfreude is a discreditable emotion, but it is awfully difficult not to smirk obnoxiously in the general direction of Quebec’s pot-banging students and the professors who supported their absurd “strike” earlier this year — not just the debilitating street protests and the smoke bombs, but the outrageous verbal and physical intimidation of other students who simply wanted to go to class. (“Scabs,” they were called, as if they had violated some imaginary covenant with the strikers.) These same radicals, along with far more reasonable groups, are now up in arms at a $124-million cut in university funding imposed earlier this month, with all of four months for it to be absorbed, by the very same Parti Québécois that so cynically and effectively cashed in on the protests and the utopian, tuition-free vision of the “strikers.”

There was now-Premier Pauline Marois, banging her casserole in the streets of Montreal along with the protesters. She looked about as comfortable as she might crossing Montmorency Falls on a tightrope, but there were votes to be had, so there she was. When it suited her purposes she proudly wore the students’ red square. When it didn’t suit her purposes, she took it off. This was the same woman who proposed tuition hikes as Lucien Bouchard’s education minister, but it didn’t seem to matter. She even wooed student protest leader Léo Bureau-Blouin to run for her party. Now, having turned 21 on Monday, he’s a member of a government that’s slashing education funding.

So, let’s do the math. Ms. Marois cancelled the planned tuition hikes as one of her first acts as Premier, pledging that the move would cost no more than $20-million.

“It’s a total victory!” crowed Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec. “It’s a new era of collaboration instead of confrontation.”

Then she turned around and snatched $124-million from the universities’ 2013 budgets. Especially considering that Mr. Charest had promised more financial aid to students with financial need — which Ms. Marois adopted — it is difficult to see how this counts as a win. As many argued during the strike, the students were essentially lobbying to subsidize education for people who could afford to pay more. Now the whole system is poorer for it.

Even in Quebec, universities need money to provide an excellent product. When I arrived at McGill in 1995, the place was, physically speaking, a wreck. And it has always had a relatively healthy endowment — about $29,000 per student at present, which is roughly nine times more than the Université de Montréal, the best-endowed francophone institution. Other than McGill, Quebec’s universities are uncommonly vulnerable to funding cuts such as Ms. Marois and her ministers are imposing. And ultimately, that’s what cures the schadenfreude: Reasonable students are going to suffer along with the unreasonable ones.

The idea of free or fantastically low tuition — from which I benefited enormously at McGill, incidentally — is far more mainstream in Quebec than in any other province, and will likely remain so. But as Montreal Gazette columnist Don Macpherson put it recently, Ms. Marois can’t fight the bond-rating agencies any more than Jean Charest, Alison Redford, Dalton McGuinty or Christy Clark can. That budgets must be balanced and debt must not get out of hand is political orthodoxy from sea to sea to sea. Much as they sometimes enjoy pretending otherwise, left-wing Quebecers inhabit the same time and space and economy as the rest of us, and they must confront the same fiscal realities.

If the Parti Québécois isn’t going to take Quebec towards the student strikers’ promised land, it’s a safe bet that no party in Quebec or anywhere else in Canada is going to do it either. (This poses an existential dilemma for the ideological, big-dreaming wing of the federal New Democrats, in particular.) There are lots of different ways to run a country or a province, and none is inherently more valid than any other if citizens grant its promoters a mandate. But the lesson from Quebec today offers voters a cautionary lesson: In politics as in commerce, if something sounds too good to be true — tax cuts with no service cuts, debt-fighting without tax hikes, more financial aid for students and a tuition freeze — it almost certainly is.

National Post

Chris Selley: cselley@nationalpost.com

The upshot of all this, I suspect, is that, perhaps even in my lifetime, McGill University will move to Calgary.


-----
* The Anglo universities, even normally radical Concordia sat on the sidelines in the "students' strike" which was, essentially, a Francophone phenomenon.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Thank you for this article Mr Campbell. I am disgusted by what I read in this article, and can't help but feel depressed by recent events.
I was born and raised in Québec, and spent most of my life here; I did spend almost a decade living outside the province. Unfortunately, there are idiots in both communities; some of us have been told to "speak white" or "speak Canadian" in the past.  Nobody has a monopoly on stupid. There are plenty of francophobe comments even on this forum.
The problem is intolerance, on both sides.

I am tired of being painted with the same brush as separatists; the majority of Québec citizens are not separatists. The majority of us are happy in Canada, some (me included) think Québec is trying too hard to be different.

As long as we will give importance to the intolerants, we will not move ahead. And they are given a lot of exposure.

Speaking of trying too hard ...

I missed the original story but this Globe and Mail editorial, which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from that newspaper, makes me more sad than usual when I contemplate Quebec within Canada:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/editorials/quebecs-language-laws-reach-a-new-low-in-sainte-agathe/article7460761/

Quebec’s language laws reach a new low in Sainte-Agathe

The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Jan. 17 2013

Quebec’s language laws have long been controversial and a source of antagonism, but their implementation still has the power to annoy and shock. That’s the case with the announcement that a quaint Quebec town has reluctantly agreed to comply with an order from a language inspector to stop including one page of English-language information in its monthly bulletin to ratepayers. It’s an order so petty and unnecessary that it amounts not to the protection of a language but to an ominous government overreach into common courtesy and mutual respect.

The story takes place in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, pop. 10,000, a bedroom and service town in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. It’s a mostly French place; at 5 per cent of the population, English-speakers only number about 500. But they have been an integral part of local history, as evidenced by the presence of an Anglican church and a synagogue. The town has even erected plaques honouring anglophones’ contribution.

With only one person in 20 speaking English, it cannot reasonably be argued that the order to stop publishing a small corner of the town bulletin in English has heroically staved off the imminent obliteration of the French language in Sainte-Agathe. The order will, in fact, have no impact whatsoever on the health of the French language anywhere in Quebec.

Its sole result has been to expose the penny-ante excesses of the province’s language laws. From the mayor on down, francophones in Sainte-Agathe have reacted with dismay to the order. They don’t like being forced by their government to insult and marginalize their neighbours. The mayor, thankfully and tellingly, has found a work-around, promising to continue to provide English-language information on the town website, and to publish the information excised from the bulletin in the local English-language newspaper.

Martin Bergeron, a spokesman for the Office québécois de la langue française, counter-argues that if everything is bilingual, then French isn’t the official language of the province. But Sainte-Agathe was never bilingual. Its municipal government simply preserved a proportionate part of its official life in English out of respect for a cherished minority population. The people who enforce Quebec’s language laws have good examples to follow in the townsfolk of Sainte-Agathe, but instead continue to choose to pursue the narrowest and most mean-spirited avenue open to them.

This is ample demonstration of the fact, and I believe it is a fact, that PQ and its language police are making a concerted effort to bully and degrade their fellow citizens who happen to be of the wrong heritage. If this sort of thing happened in another country our national government in Ottawa would express its outrage and this abuse of simple civility. It speaks poorly for the moral standards of every single person who supports the PQ and even kore poorly of those who try to appease the separatists. It tells me that many Quebecers are unfit to be Canadians.

I am ashamed to be part of a bilingual and bicultural country that provides safe haven for institutionalized hatred based on race, culture, creed or language.

 

[a_majoor]

More on how elections have consequences. Personally, I would have continued to ask the disturbed individual to repeat herself ("I'm sorry, I don't understand what you just said. Can you please repeat it?") until her vocal cords gave out or she had an aneurysm (the ideal solution). Once I asked for assistance to give first aid I'll bet lots of people would "suddenly" remember their English....

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2013/02/14/dan-delmar-quebec-language-zealots-anti-anglo-message-has-a-trickle-down-effect/

Dan Delmar: Quebec language zealots’ anti-anglo message has a trickle-down effect

Dan Delmar | Feb 14, 2013 8:57 AM ET | Last Updated: Feb 14, 2013 11:17 AM ET
More from Dan Delmar
Pauline Marois
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul ChiassonPauline Marois
 
A follower on Twitter sent me this strange video of a woman on the Montreal Métro screaming at fellow passengers and giving them the middle finger for daring to address her in a language other than French; it’s a safe assumption that the offending tongue was English.

Now, at first glance, you might think that it’s just a morbidly fascinating video of a disturbed individual incoherently ranting about nonsense on public transit when she should be getting treatment in a mental institution (thanks again for the deinstitutionalisation plan, Brian Mulroney). But I choose to read a bit more into this.

My friend Barbara Kay recently argued that “mentally disturbed people often take ‘reasons’ for their paranoia from vibes in the general atmosphere.” I knew Barbara was onto something, but I wasn’t totally convinced of her “vibes” argument until I saw this video.

    Having government tell the population, “here, we speak French,” isn’t exactly delicate, diplomatic or the least bit welcoming either.

The woman in question repeats a slogan that is frequently used by Parti Québécois (PQ) leaders and other ultranationalists, and is used in a long-standing government campaign (supported by the Quebec Liberal party as well) to encourage French in the workplace: “Ici, c’est en Français que cela ce passe!” There are variations to the oft-used slogan, from the more colloquial “ici, c’est en français que ça se passe” to the more business-oriented “ici, on commerce en français.” The latter is the slogan created by marketing firm Bleublancrouge for the government.

If politicians, leaders, repeat slogans enough, they start being adopted by their flock, and the sheep start seeing the spin as reality. Of course, there are many languages used in business in Quebec and no amount of government intervention will ever change that. But the “ici, c’est en Français” line sounds strong and definitive, and reaffirms a sense of pride that insecure nationalists have about their language (which, statistically, has been doing just fine, but that’s beside the point).

This screaming woman on the Métro is only repeating what PQ and Liberal governments have been promoting for years. Her tone is loud and aggressive, but having government tell the population, “here, we speak French,” isn’t exactly delicate, diplomatic or the least bit welcoming either.

If, for instance, this woman were to lunge at an Anglophone passenger, I wouldn’t blame the PQ for that. Fostering a climate of intolerance toward linguistic minorities isn’t quite as irresponsible inciting violence against those minorities, but it certainly doesn’t help. For that reason, I rejected the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste’s argument that “les médias anglophones” helped foster a climate of hate that led to Richard Henry Bain’s election night shooting, which killed one man. Even if I were hateful toward Francophones – a charge I will always vigorously deny – no reasonable person could accuse me of having blood on my hands because of the actions of a lone, deranged man.

When government enacts policies that are inherently repressive toward whole groups of people, however, that is an action that can have real-world implications. It legitimizes, more than a radio host or newspaper columnist ever could, the demonization of Anglos and other linguistic minorities, and discourages civil exchanges between citizens with equal rights.

This video isn’t shocking – we’ve seen countless reports of such anti-anglo incidents. Instead, it is simply honest. It’s an honest reflection of the nationalist discourse in Quebec, which is fueled less by a sense of pride in the Québécois culture and the French language than a disdain for English and the perceived threat that it poses to this society.

It may seem ridiculous, at first, to suggest that a screaming woman on the Métro could have anything in common with Premier Pauline Marois and fellow language zealots. But when you examine the current political climate in Quebec, it is clear that the only thing separating the screaming lady from our nationalist leaders is a little tact and a big wardrobe allowance.

National Post

Dan Delmar is the co-founder of Provocateur Communications and a talk-show host with CJAD 800 Montreal.