Regardless of the cause, and I would argue the uncertainty of separatism was a bigger driver than language given the coincident time periods, everyone would be better off if Ontario and Quebec were “have” provinces.
Still, equalization and transfers are there to allow for comparable levels of service are available to all Canadians regardless of where they are. They’re also to help the province develop economically and so, if the daycare project actually manages to do that it’s not necessarily a waste of time.
I went and dug into the various provincial budgets for 2011 and tried to make a coherent picture.
Equalization as Transfers as
Prov. Equal Transfers Revenue % Transfers % of Revenue Population
ON 2200 21731 108453 10% 20% 13210
QC 7815 15039 65376 52% 23% 7907
BC 0 7580 41337 0% 18% 4530
AB 0 5273 33982 0% 16% 3720
MB 1666 3647 10772 46% 34% 1235
SK 0 1568 10794 0% 15% 1045
NS 1167 3199 8390 36% 38% 942
NB 1483 2494 7306 59% 34% 751
NL 0 1141 6877 0% 17% 509
PE 329 613 1489 54% 41% 142
All 14660 62285 294776 24% 21% 33991
And tomorrow all citizens of the Swiss canton of Grisons (Graubünden) could decide that three official languages is just too complicated, and all adopt Nepalese instead. But I wouldn’t bet on it, and their government isn’t going to bet on it either. So for now they recognize three official languages, and it’s reflected in their institutions.
Hey, tomorrow all Americans could decide that guns are just scary and something nobody should own! I mean, it could happen. Doesn’t prevent them from guaranteeing the right to bear arms right in their constitution, until then.
They adapt kind of well.
Okay, so they’re stupid. Let’s tell them the next time they start a Pit thread about it.
Well, okay, you just don’t think Canada (or, I suppose, the Western world as a whole) is exotic enough. Doesn’t mean Canada is objectively “vanilla”, just that from your perspective, it is.
Your perception is wrong. I said it earlier in this thread: I’d very much like it if francophones in Quebec were as proud a people as other Canadians. I, for one, am proud of what I am. But I don’t think we’re in any way better than any other people. We’re just unique (like all other peoples).
No, I said that in Toronto’s (or any other English-speaking city) Chinatown, I will have no trouble at all finding someone who speaks English. If that old Chinese lady doesn’t speak it, her granddaughter will speak it with a perfect Canadian accent. I’m not saying it would bother me if she then speaks, say, Cantonese with the grandma, because it wouldn’t. And if you’ll allow me, I suspect that Albertan lady in alphaboi’s anecdote would have thought the same, but it was the fact that she was in Quebec City and they were speaking French that irritated her.
And this is why I say that Canada’s claims of multiculturalism sound hollow to me. And I assume to you as well, which is why you now live in Hong Kong and not in Toronto’s Chinatown.
Meh, perhaps. If you’re visiting, you’re probably right. But if you went to live there, you’d probably find that you need some adaptation. (Not as big as the adaptation needed to move to China, I agree.)
Of course I “realize” it: I’m the one who described the process to Cunctator in the other thread. Doesn’t anybody pay attention to what I’m saying here? And no, that doesn’t violate the constitution: Alberta (and Saskatchewan as well, I believe) holds non-binding senatorial elections, and the PM can decide to appoint the winners. Or to do nothing. Harper’s decided he would. That’s quite different to mandating senatorial elections.
OK, so you’re telling me that Harper’s plan for Senate reform is the complete status quo. To paraphrase Colbert, now that’s change I can believe in! I’ll admit that he’s planning to cap senators to one nine-year term, which is still more (better? I don’t know) than nothing, and can plausibly be done without going through the constitutional amendment formula. (Does anybody know how it was done when senators’ terms were reduced from lifetime appointments to terms ending at their 75th birthday? Though that might have been before the current constitution.)
That’s disingenuous. Who says that since Albertans want to directly elect their senators in provincial at-large elections, that’s how all Canadians should want to do it? An elected Senate will drastically change how Parliament works, and will also change the roles of the provincial governments. Should I just want to jump in because whooo, an election!? And Cat Whisperer claims that we Quebecers don’t think of the consequences of our political decisions while she, like mature and right-thinking Albertans, is coolly weighing the pros and cons. Allow me a measure of skepticism. :dubious:
Erm, okay? (To be clear: I don’t think I would agree with how Pratte or Le Ministre would describe “Canada and the principles and values that are the foundation of the federation”. I don’t think you would either.)
Fair enough, thanks. I thought I’d seen an article claiming that the government of Quebec was considering suing the federal government. Either I’m misremembering or the article was imprecise.
Describe the process. Or do you think your presence is the only thing preventing Quebec from looking like the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
And you’re definitely not completely (or any way) cognizant of Quebec’s economy. We all know it would be a challenge for a Canadian province (any province, yes, even yours!) to become an independent country. There are strong economic ties between Canadian provinces. But you’re telling me that my people is basically third world level if it weren’t from the rest of Canada. That’s insulting, lady. And it confirms my suspicions that English Canadians just don’t see us as a modern people equal to them.
Do educate yourself. Perhaps talk to a few Quebecers, perhaps you’ll figure out that some of us are actually intelligent, and some even educated.
Change, yes. Disappear? I’d prefer avoiding it. It may happen, in which case, see ya!
In the Canadian context? Certainly, since it happened in 1981 and Bouchard was basically some labour negotiator for the Quebec government at the time. As far as I know he didn’t really become a public figure until Mulroney became PM.
Here’s another one who should educate himself before speaking. Lévesque was trying his best to hold his ground along with the other provincial premiers. (I’m basing myself on Pierre Godin’s biography of Lévesque here.) He was apparently counting especially on Peter Lougheed, premier of Alberta, whom he considered a true statesman. Lévesque’s mistake was to bite when Trudeau suggested a national referendum on a new constitution. The idea seemed appealing to him and he said so. The other premiers feared they’d lose their bargaining position and decided to settle that evening, and Lévesque found himself in front of a fait accompli. But the premiers’ front had already begun to crack, and not because of Lévesque.
If Lévesque’d been negotiating in bad faith, he wouldn’t have felt betrayed (even by Trudeau!) and the premiers wouldn’t have felt ashamed. As it happened, both were true.
I’m sure you think you do. But let me phrase my thought this way: do you love Quebec’s culture as it stands (keeping in mind, as mentioned, that cultures change), or an idealised image of “French Canadians”?
I know Ibanez actually lives in Quebec, though I don’t know his background (anglophone, francophone, something else?) But let me ask this: why am I even taking time out of my day to try to post intelligent arguments on this board, when I get this kind of turd in response? I don’t want to blame Ibanez of English Canadians, because he might very well be a francophone Quebecer who just really hates Quebec. But, this attitude is common among anglophone Canadians as well. So what do I do? I may spend hours trying to discuss Canada, what this country is, what this country should be, what is it that we want to build, but in the mind of my interlocutor, I’m just sore about the Conquest and nothing I can say will change his mind.
Is what I’m saying taken the slightest bit seriously here? I can spend hours writing posts that explain as best as I can what it is that I feel about this whole issue, but if to most people I’m just a little frenchie who doesn’t know what he’s talking about and who’s just angry he lost the war, what’s it worth? Should I just let the English Canadians here pat themselves on the back about how they’ve got such a wonderful country that’s perfect in any way, but it’s oh so sad that Quebec doesn’t want to come play along and is being so bad and ethnocentric and stuck on peccadilloes? What do I care, really?
Careful with the autocriticism, they view it as a sign of weakness.
Seriously, Quebec’s certainly got some problems to solve, but are they really any worse than in the rest of the Western world? Should we really have to hang our collective heads in shame? I don’t think so. And really, I’m extremely proud of what Quebec society managed to do in the last few decades.
And more to the point, do English Canadians ever criticize their country in any way? (Well, other than Quebec of course, and Vancouver rioters as well I suppose.) Seriously, when I say that I’d like Quebecers to be as proud a people as other Canadians, I mean it. Though perhaps it’s better that we keep an ability to see what should be improved.
Stephen Harper refering to Atlantic Canada and equalization payments
“Canada appears content to become a second-tier socialistic country, boasting ever more loudly about its economy and social services to mask its second-rate status, led by a second-world strongman appropriately suited for the task.” - Stephen Harper
“bums and creeps” from Eastern Canada coming to Calgary and committing crime. - Ralph Klein
There was also something about us being the shrill voice of virtue while doing nothing - something that re-emerged with the whole “soft power” debate - but I’ll be damned if I can find it.
And calm down, the discussion around equalization is just that. As my numbers show Quebec does receive a fair bit in equalization BUT it has a fair number of people to be equalized for. Combined with transfer payments every province gets their numbers drop down into rough parity with everyone else.
The why and how to correct that would be a much better discussion that stupidly focusing on mean words.
My point being is that there is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing a province for one language group.
And given that perspective, the cultural differences between French and English are minor.
I do find it hollow. Cultures should survive on their own merits, not be enforced, promoted or protected by the government.
Was he saying it should be mandated? If so, I agree that would probably require a constitutional change.
But, by consistently appointing ‘elected’ senators over time, it becomes increasingly difficult for future PM’s to avoid doing so themselves.
And they can do what they want. A choice is a bad thing?
The Senate will not have any ability to do anything they currently could not do now if they chose to do so. They just don’t have the ‘authority’ to do it as they are not currently elected. If there is a problem with their powers then they should be changed because at anytime, given the right circumstances, they can exercise them and then it would be too late to complain about it.
And if they can’t be trusted with those powers, even when elected, it should be eliminated completely.
I think you’d be surprised how protective each province of its own interests in confederation. IIRC, in many cases easier to trade north/south than east/west.
Well, personally I’d be far more derisive if I thought you weren’t worth talking to. But, I don’t have to agree with you to talk to you. At most, I might think that you are spening a large amount of effort protecting, defending, whatever, a ‘culture’ that isn’t any different than the one you are protecting it against. More importantly, you are protecting it from the very people who live within it and tacitly want it to change. Because if they didn’t want it to change, it wouldn’t and you would have no need to protect it.
It’s like when you buy a new car. You all of a sudden see many more of them on the road than previously. Did the number increase overnight? Nope, you are more attuned to seeing them.
Honestly, there are only a few reasons that Quebec is ever singled out in my mind: 1. Separation - you have to admit that Quebec is the only one in confederation that keeps trotting that horseshit out with any chance of it occurring, 2. Equalization payments (usually when Quebec trots out some other social benefit that no other province can realistically afford, yet we are paying for it for them), and 3. Language laws.
People simply don’t care as much about a province that’s one seventh as big as Quebec and that has limited political influence. It’s just not as big an economic issue.
If Ontario goes a few decades getting huge equalization payments, hoo boy. There will be screaming.
I think there must be different ways of interpreting the question of transfer payments - I read a site recently (I think it was a government of Canada site) that indicated that Ontario is getting transfer payments equal to Quebec’s.
Everyone gets transfer payments from the Federal Government. Alberta alone gets 5 Billion - see my table above.
The statement is about equalization payments which are based on some of the following
Provincial Revenue capacity
Mean GDP per capita
Natural Resources
So Ontario’s Mean GDP per capita dropped below the average of the 10 provinces. It consequently now receives 2 billion in equalization payments. Note that it is an average and so at least half of the provinces will be below it - hence there will always be equalization payments.
Federal transfers for federal programs like health care are different.
Fair enough for questioning political decisions, though unfair, obviously, to paint an entire province’s people with that brush, and too often used as an excuse to attack, insult, belittle, condescend to or otherwise disparage the people of Québec.
Given all the different sorts of transfer and equalization payments, doesn’t this all work out so that everyone is more or less working from a similar funding/ability to pay level? Isn’t that the idea, or am I totally of the mark? Québec trots out social benefits that other provinces don’t have, but does so at the expense of other spending. Montreal is falling apart - the most important city in the province is on the verge of (hyperbollically) no longer being accessible as it’s bridges and highway and infrastructure ages and collapses. Perhaps money put into cheap/accessible education and daycare could/should have been used to repair those bridges and roads (no, I have no idea what the equivalent costs are, I don’t care, this is just an example), but at the expense of still living (hyperbollically) in the Dark Ages in terms of educated population and access to work by women. As a woman educated in Québec, I struggle to say that that’s the route we should have taken, but I also struggle to get to work because of all the damn construction! It’s a trade-off, and one that needs to be better balanced for sure, but it’s not simply that Québec “has more money than everyone else” because that simply isn’t true. Québec just chooses to spend money differently. Do you resent us our de la Concorde overpass collapse, as well as our daycares?
And despite all that self-criticism about the consequences of those choices, I still maintain that they were, and should remain, Québec’s choices to make, which isn’t really being argued here, but is just an opportunity to re-iterate that independence.
I’m not really sure why these language laws make you so angry. I just don’t understand that. For one, the “language laws and language police” that Québec regulates occur in Québec, and as someone who is an anglophone in Québec (via my dad’s side of the family - personally I identify as bilingual) I support these laws, feel they are valid in most cases and don’t really see why they should offend you. The laws mostly limit the rights of francophones anyways. Sure, there are some problems, sure there are still issues that need to be worked out and perhaps some adjustments to be made (the lack of immigrant access to English language schools is having an impact on the viability of some smaller schools, for example), but overall, I have no problem with these laws. People here speak French - making efforts to do business with them in that language makes sense. I’d like to see Québec become more bilingual, but I still have no problem with the language of the workplace being officially French.
As someone who doesn’t live here, doesn’t have any intent to live here, and is unaffected whatsoever by them, I don’t see why you’re so bothered by them.
If it’s the federal French-language laws only that bother you, then I suppose that’s different, but given the non-trivial numbers of French-Canadians in other provinces, I don’t see why you’d want to limit their access to services in their language - an official Canadian language - simply because you dislike Québec. Frankly, that just makes it seem like you dislike all French people, which is kind of a stupid thing to do. I would imagine that even without Québec in Canada, French-Canadians would still maintain their right to federal services in French. I know I’d be fighting for it, even though I could easily get through life in English only.
I’d say, and I’m not Uzi, that the apparent expansion of social services not available elsewhere while possessing perceived higher taxes and larger debts (Ontario seems to skate by this issue) is an irresponsible use of those fees.
Now if the daycare program could be presented as an economic driver reducing the need for equalization payments then the story would change. Albertans could just as easily manage a daycare program if they choose to actually enact a provincial sales tax, which they choose not to.
Similar resentment is thrown at the Atlantic provinces and their continual need for equalization/EI costs.
Ok, I can see that. But it is just an apparent thing - it’s an interpretation that doesn’t consider the reality of everything else in the province. Yes, Québec has expensive social programs, because culturally it is something that is desired, and it is part of the ongoing effort to have an educated, healthy workforce that includes women/parents and *francophones *- something that wasn’t true or even possible only a couple of generations ago.
Is it really that irresponsible to try and give 90% of the population access to these things? Other provinces have focused on other priorities, but have done so at the expense of social programs. Ontario has beautiful roads and highways (compared to Québec!) and much more efficient bridge replacement processes, but is only now beginning to offer full-day kindergarten, something I had access to as a kid (I’m 30) and feel is important for children’s development. As I said, it’s a trade-off.
That isn’t to say that I’d go back and always make the same choices - we have a ton of problems here, things that were ignored in favour of trying to fix/address other problems. But so do you, so does every other province.
The daycare program can, perhaps, eventually lead to increased productivity and a reduced need for equalization payments. It allows more women to enter or remain the workforce, more women with kids to become more educated… aren’t these things that can accomplish that? It just might take time.
Though I read that the current equalization formula is such that it kind of discourages certain types of economic growth and development because it isn’t a 1:1 tradeoff… incremental improvements in one factor of the formula lead to a disproportionate decrease in funding, so that there’s no incentive to make those improvements. I think we can examine the formula and improve it, but personally, I’m not against the existence of it.
I just don’t understand the resentment. Encourage programs and methods to improve the situation, but why hate on the people in those provinces? We haven’t all had the same history, we don’t all have the same resources, we don’t all have the same population. There just seems to be so much anger directed towards people in other provinces…it comes across as the rich wanting to punish the poor for being poor. What the rich don’t have, the poor can’t even dream of having without help…that’s why we try and balance things out via equalization.
As I said, are we all equals, or aren’t we? It almost sounds sometimes like some people don’t want us to be.
It’s money, people and politicians - how on earth could it not, at points, devolved into recriminations and disagreements.
That said, I’d say most people don’t understand equalization vs. transfers, let alone how the formula works. I thought it was hilarious the Quebec government had a bloody document explaining why the were getting equalization and how it worked and not one other province has anything similar.
Quebec equalization payments don’t bother me quiet so much as Ontario’s own internal fiscal issues. Services in excess of revenue and no real plan to fix it.
If you mean after Quebec hypothetically separates, I don’t think Canada would remain bilingual (with the possible exception of the province of New Brunswick). I could be wrong, though.
My sincere apologies Hypnagogic Jerk, yourself nor anyone else here has gone the 1759 route. From my experiences talking politics with other Québecois/Québecoise usually leads to some claim of injustice caused against them at some point in the conversation. And some of the claims are real no doubt. I’m just not a fan of living in the past when the present is relatively good for Quebecers as it stands for the most part.
If you want to spend every penny you earn on your social programs that is one thing. If you want to spend everything you earn and then more that is another. To what level should anyone else subsidize your choices? That is the point, not what you spend it on. By you spending more than you generate someone else has to make up the difference. By introducing new programs that others have to support and don’t have (we all have to repair roads and manage just fine to have an educated workforce without public daycare), you act like a greedy child especially when you say something like it is our ‘culture’, like it is an excuse that you can’t help yourself in spending so much.
Re. Language laws. I am bothered because as a Canadian, everyone should have the same rights regardless of where they are in Canada. Not less, not more, the same. Freedom of expression rights, to say what you want in whatever language you want, are particularly important. That is my ‘culture’.
I’ll admit that he’s planning to cap senators to one nine-year term, which is still more (better? I don’t know) than nothing, and can plausibly be done without going through the constitutional amendment formula. (Does anybody know how it was done when senators’ terms were reduced from lifetime appointments to terms ending at their 75th birthday? Though that might have been before the current constitution.)
(To be clear: I don’t think I would agree with how Pratte or Le Ministre would describe “Canada and the principles and values that are the foundation of the federation”. I don’t think you would either.)