4 ms·
You know, "the economy" does not have to be this deity that you absolutely have to sacrifice every aspect of culture, history, socializing, and every part of li
by auxym 11y ago
You know, "the economy" does not have to be this deity that you absolutely have to sacrifice every aspect of culture, history, socializing, and every part of living an enjoyable life to.
Québec still has the third highest GDP in the Canadian provinces [1]. Québec lost a lot of manufacturing and automotive sector jobs in the last decade or two. So has most of the western world. I don't think it has much to do with the language.
As for the infrastructure, I'd posit that crappy infrastructure at high costs is largely due to corrupt politicians (ever hear of another place where money played too big a role in electoral campaigns?) and construction companies being run by the mafia [2].
Which, of course, all are problems of their own, and in no way is Québec a utopia. It's just a bit tiring to always hear the easy intellectual shortcuts that blame everything on law 101.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories_by_gross_domestic_product https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and...
[2] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-charbonneau-lesson-public-contracts-are-always-a-criminal-opportunity/article27484535/ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-c...
- sidarape 11y ago> As for the infrastructure, I'd posit that crappy infrastructure at high costs is largely due to corrupt politicians (ever hear of another place where money played too big a role in electoral campaigns?) and construction companies being run by the mafia [2]. To add on that, people always think Québec is more corrupt than anywhere else because of a number of events in the last years, but I'm quite sure this is not unique to Quebec and you have the same phenomena everywhere else. We only heard about corruption in Quebec because people were interested to investigate.
- branchless 11y agoExactly, they have actually arrested some people. How many in the UK were arrested for huge corruption that would make anything in Quebec look like a pin-prick? Zero. It's not perfect here but it's good.
- dsq 11y agoUh huh, Quebec is enjoying it's 'culture' and nice laid back lifestyle at the expense of the uncultured Anglaise as the highest recipient of equalization payments: Quebec ($7.833 billion) From wikipedia
- sidarape 11y agoDo you even know of the equalization payments are calculated? Also, back 20 years ago and before, it was Québec that was paying the equalization payments to Alberta and the western provinces.
- hackbinary 11y agoI remember the news from 20 years ago, 1995, and my recollection is that Quebec was a have not province back then. I think Quebec has pretty much forever been a have not province. http://news.nationalpost.com/news/time-for-quebec-to-end-equalization-addiction-montreal-think-tank http://news.nationalpost.com/news/time-for-quebec-to-end-equ...
- auxym 11y agoQuébec is only receiving equalization because of the money AB and SK are (were) making off oil. Given that even Ontario is receiving equalization, and that Quebec's payment is about half (per capita) than NB and PEI's payment, I'm still not sure I understand why language has anything to do with it. If that was even your argument.