The high cost of separation
Quebecers have good reason not to be impressed with some of the nonsense Premier Pauline Marois has been spouting in recent days during her trip to Europe.
She was in Monaco, attending a World Policy Conference gathering, where she was pointedly asked why she and her ruling Parti Quebecois still want to “destroy Canada.”
“We do not want to destroy anything,” she replied. “We want to empower ourselves (nous voulons nous assumer), and in empowering ourselves, I believe that we will have healthier relations with the rest of Canada.”
This is the conventional soft-soap reply often given internationally by Quebec separatists, but it deflects attention from the underlying inconvenient truth that Quebec separation would, indeed, destroy Canada. The separation of one of the largest provinces in the federation, a province also situated in the centre of the country, would put an end to Canada as the unified coast-tocoast-to-coast nation that it is.
Quebec has been an essential component of Canada from the very beginning, and it is impossible to imagine how a truncated Canada could go on as successfully as it has, without Quebec.
It is also a howling delusion to think that people in what is left of Canada would look more kindly on a separated Quebec — especially one whose separatist movement consistently demonstrates such ill will toward Canada.
Marois went on to repeat the old canard that “Canada was founded on the existence of two nations” when, in fact, Canada was founded by four colonial entities that chose to unite into one country, and made special accommodations for Quebec’s French fact.
Marois cited Quebec’s French fact as essentially the prime reason for splitting Canada, even though the French language is in general good health. Census figures to that effect tend to discount alarmist predictions about the dire future of French.
Another example of misleading spin from Marois in Europe were the half-truths she cited with respect to the much-vaunted Quebec model for delivering social benefits, such as $7-a-day daycare and bargainbasement university tuition fees. “A social model without equal in North America,” is how she touted it.
What the premier typically neglected to mention, however, is that this cherished model is sustained by the heaviest tax burden of any jurisdiction in North America, the highest per capita public debt on the continent, and equalization payments from Ottawa that account for almost 10 per cent of annual provincial revenues.