Given that we live in a kinder gentler age, I suggest we come up with some sort of program whereby wealthier provinces hand over money to the poorer less fortunate … no … wait!
In a report bluntly titled, “Quebec’s Fiscal Situation: The Alarm Bells have Sounded,” the board paints a gloomy picture of a greying society, where health care consumes more and more tax dollars while revenues fail to keep pace. It calculates that revenue growth will average 4% over the next 20 years, while overall government expenditures will increase on average by 5.1%. Health care spending, however, will grow by 5.9% over the same period; 20% of that increase will be due to the aging population. In real terms, health care spending will increase from $27 billion in 2009-2010 to $90.2 billion in 2030-31.
For all the stereotypical nastiness hurled at NL over equalization, people often forget that the biggest beneficiary of equalization has always been, and remains for the foreseeable future, la belle province.
Far be it from me to gloat, what with the new power deal between NS and NL, and NL’s economic boom and Quebec’s continual economic decline (I’m going to do it anyway).
So given that Quebec is going broke faster than expected, we should be prepared to hear more cries for more money and threats of separation as the motivating factor for us to cough up the dough.
We should ignore the cries for increased wealth theft from the rest of Canada and tell them they will be missed if the go but it if they want to live in poverty, fill yer boots.
Have a nice life.
If they go, will I need a passport to go to the strip clubs in Gatineau?
Zut alors! Dépanneur!
I grew up in Montreal and watched, astonished, as francophony morons created an intolerable environment that quickly forced major employers to leave the province while the cowards in Ottawa did diddlt. Is the Bank of Montreal’s head office still on King Street in Toronto? In Ontario?
Quebec has many resources, people with a real entrepreneurial spirit and a sufficient tax base to fund all of it’s future liabilities. It’s called Canada.
The Greece and Ireland equivalent in Canada
Canadian Bilingualism = the greatest boondoggle of all time!!!
Quebecers should long ago have considered the cost/benefit analysis regarding Speaking French vs. Prosperity. Unfortunately for them, they still believe that everyone else will cover the costs. They will eventually wake-up to a big surprise, and in the end have neither their culture or prosperity.JMO
No fair.
We can’t vote for the Bloc Quebecois.
C’mon whiners. Pay your way.
Demonstrate your independence by building an arena in Quebec City with Quebec taxpayers’ money.
Cut off the transfer payments now!
SYF
Quebecers are independently dependent.
Indy:
You may have a point there.
Suck it up Frogs!
I read an article awhile back that suggested Greece sell off some of its islands to become solvent. Maybe we can sell Quebec to pay off its debts? Newf/Lab could buy back Churchill Falls rights, the Natives and Metis could buy the rest of the North and then auction the remainder at fire sale prices under the condition of immediate possession. Quebec finally leaves Canada and the ROC can get back to national issues.
No, I suppose we are stuck with the deadbeats. And, of course, Quebec will demand that the ROC pay off its provincial debt. After all, the ROC has never said “no” to any other unreasonable demands.
Quebec has it’s own separate pension plan from the Canada Pension Plan, right?
(yes I know the CPP is either broke or going broke)
They can use that to deal with their revenue shortfalls.
And far from Quebec being in a better postion to blackmail the RoC, the RoC is now in a better position to say, “Grow up and fly straight or we’ll cut off your allowance.”
Time to fish or cut bait, Pee-airs.
I hope you’re right, Oz.
Unfortunately for Quebec, the threat of insolvency will kick in at about the same time as their clout within Canada is diminishing – the BLOC making in impossible for the federal parties and their lower percentage of total seats in Canada as population increases in the West.
Unfortunately for the West, Ontario’s government is trying to catch up to Quebec fiscal failure and follow them over the cliff. Ontario may team up with Quebec and demand the nationalizing of provincial debt.
Ontario may team up with Quebec and demand the nationalizing of provincial debt.
~LC Bennett
Alberta has the lowest provincial debt.
Before we elected “Red Ed” Stelmach, we didn’t have any provincial debt at all.
Zilch, nada.
Albertans tighened their belts and did the austerity thing in the ’90s and we’d be willing to do it again, but not for Easterners who raped our province in the ’80s with the NEP.
Nationalizing provincial debt would be a Confederation breaker for Albertans.
Count on it.
Oz
You got that right Brother.
$7-a-day daycare in Quebec.
40% electricity increases in Ontario.
Both of them will be welfare wastelands in a decade-Free the West.
No worries Quebec will demand that NFL and Alberta pay down their debt so they can live as free range Socialists.
I hope they come cap-in-hand looking for a federal bail-out.
Then we will find out what the ROC is made of. I have no problem bailing them out as long as a few conditions are met:
1. The Que Hydro has its income adjusted to reflect real market prices for power when calculating equalization transfers. That (according to Danny williams and others) would reduce the transfers by 8.5 billion annually (and make Ontario a much bigger have not than it currently is BTW).
2. Scrap the subsidized daycare
3. Reduce the subsidized post-secondary education to the same levels as the ROC
4. And several other programs that are far richer in QUE than they are in any other province would have to be synchronized with the ROC.
The looming crisis will truly flush out the federal parties. Should they support a que bailout unconditionally, they will be annihilated in the ROC. Vice Versa; i.e. not allow a bailout without conditions and face oblivion in Que – who cares?
For the first time in living memory it will be politically beneficial to take a harder line vis-a-vis que than your political opponent.
Bring it on.
What I would like is a referendum in the ROC with a question as to whether Québec should be expelled from Confederation. I’d gladly vote YES. Buh-bye freeloaders… don’t let the doorknob hit you in the cul on the way out.
Separation Referendum, now!
This time Canada want’s you out.
No alimony, no extra’s, no compromise. Take you’re liberalism and multicultural drop-ins along with you.
Quebec is our Europe. Watch it disintegrate.
What would it take to run BQ nomination meetings in our ridings?
cost to send about 20000 canadians to live in Quebec to make sure the referendum goes for separation about 200000000
savings per year about 5 billion. payout days, not months.
results and the look on the BQs face when they actually have to exit , priceless.
cost to send about 20000 canadians to live in Quebec to make sure the referendum goes for separation about 200000000
savings per year about 5 billion. payout days, not months.
results and the look on the BQs face when they actually have to exit , priceless.
As much as we all like to call Quebec names and say we will take our ball and go home, nothing will change. We will all be dead and nothing will have changed.
They only way I can see the cart being upset is if we have a True Canada (TC) party with no Quebec representation. Then let’s see how things fair with the TC against the BQ.
But like I said, we’ll all be dead in 20, 30 or 40 years and nothing will have changed. My grandchildren’s future saddens me…
Don’t confuse the BQ with the PQ, folks.
The first is a “federal” party the second is a provincial party.
It’s the provincial party that holds the separation referendums.
Neither of them is in power nor are they likely to be.
Quebec’s population has been falling and Alberta’s has been ballooning.
Past time to take Federal seats away from Quebec and some of the Maritime provinces, then add some to Alberta.
Oz:
Quebec is constitutionally guaranteed a minimum of 75.
If i recall correctly there are some structural issues that keep the living-beyond-their-means eastern empire lording it over the west.
e.g. PEI voters, guaranteed four MP’s, or one MP per 50,000 or so people
West around 120,000 per MP.
Quebec – guaranteed 25% of seats in the house, true bench strength currently around 21 or 22%
Supreme court makeup – guaranteed eastern bias with Q, Martimes etc guaranteed representation
All from our nazi loving pierre turd’oh constitutional legacy.
Please verify, but my lasting impression is our democracy is a fraud.
The West wants out.
If you made a list of “things that suck about Canada” the first 6 would be Q.U.E.B.E.C. Most western countries have a loser minority group to drag them down. Those that didn’t, imported losers.
Oz: Quebec is constitutionally guaranteed a minimum of 75.
~Gord Tulk
Right you are Gord.
There is only one thing to do about a fixed game.
Pick up your chips and leave the table.
When you have 2 scorpians in a jar, either one of them has to kill the other or you have to break the jar.
Interesting observation Oz. Cal 2 – I laughed out loud when I read your little scenario; an action that should be seriously considered,IMO.
cal 2
Where’d you get that idea?
The economic strain of blind allegiance to socialized health care combined with the aging boomers is why I find myself considering immigrating to another nation.
Oz:
Picking up chips is an option.
Waiting about another two election cycles until a party can get a majority in the house without any QUE seats is another.
Also constitutional change can be done with seven provinces with 50% of the Pop’n. Ontario is considerably less sympathetic to QUE than it used to be and if anything is becoming moreso. Thus it may be possible to make changes w/o Que’s agreement.
Tanker is on the right track, but I doubt an expulsion referendum would hold up in court.
On the other hand, Charlottetown III, presented with such goodies as a triple E Senate, freedom from federal meddling in provincial responsibilities (can you say “Canada Health Act”?), and true accounting when calculating equalization (Hi Danny!), and my favourite part: SIGN ON OR YOU’RE NO LONGER PART OF THE CONFEDERATION could remake Canada in an astonishingly short time. Quebec would have to decide, once and for all, if it’s in or out. And no renegotiation for at least fifty years. 2012 will be the 30th anniversary of PET’s disgraceful document; how fitting to junk it with a real deal this time.