Quebec Election Thread

[Valmy]

they didn't reduce expenses and concentrated on their social agenda rather than the economic one.

Really?  Man, total fail.  It is like they are taking a page out of the 'how to suck' playbook the Republicans are writing.

[Grey Fox]

Who saying we'll be rich magically?

Um the party that is going to win.  PQ.  You are alll going to be rich like Norway with all your oil and shit.

The gist of the separatis economic rethoric is "We'll stop giving the federal government money to do things we disapprove of and use it to do things we approve"

Yeah all that money the Feds drain from Quebec...pity it is in fact the other way around.

We're all still going to get taxed at ~45%.

And you will have billions less dollars every year!  Hurrah!

Seriously.  Brilliant.

Who knows? No one ever quote figures how much goes to the federal government from taxes collected in Quebec.

[Grey Fox]

We're all still going to get taxed at ~45%.

It's okay. There's a trade up, my house didn't cost me 1 million $ like it would have in Vancouver.

[Valmy]

Who knows? No one ever quote figures how much goes to the federal government from taxes collected in Quebec.

Surely that is not secret information

[viper37]

The CAQ is the new vehicle behind which Power Corporation and the federalist elite hide.  For instance some of their goals include: privatize Hydro Quebec and downsize (read undermine) even more the State.  All items which should be enough to discourage any nationalist to vote for them.  Not Viper apparently...

They did not propose to privatize Hydro-Quebec.  They want to reduce the number of people working there, just as the PQ and the PLQ suggested in the past.

All nationalists should vote for the CAQ, for they are the only ones who stand a chance to reinforce Quebec and make it possible to either pull more than our own weight in Canada or become a independant country.

Of course, there are those like you who believe in status quo.  There are people, a majority of them unfortunately, who believe more government, more corruption, more flawed rules are a necessity.  We need more bureaucrats, we need more FTQ scum funneling mafia money to the political party.

It's your right to be wrong.  I just wish people like you who wish to live in poverty would let others aspire to their dreams instead of constantly bringing us down.

And you see Power Corp everywhere.  Power Corp was behind the Liberals up 'til the polls showed they were way behind.  Then their attitude changed.  Like they did at the federal level.

This new vehicle replaces the Liberals whose brand is soiled with too many rumors of scandals to salvage.  In fact, up until the beginning of summer, La Presse, the most federalist media in Quebec (and property of a subsidiary of PowerCorp), played the 'law and order' card, kept downplaying those persistent rumors of corruption and insisted Charest was the best man for Qc.  That is until the first polls showed massive disaffection against the current government.  After that the editorial board of the newspaper made a 180 degree turn and started backing the CAQ and presenting Legault as the new best thing.   One also as to know that the co-founder and financial backer of this 'new party' is Charles Sirois - current chairman of CIBC and yet another hardcore federalist...  These people are as transparent as they are morally bankrupt.

The PQ is just as corrupt as the Liberal party.  As journalists are now starting to scratch the PQ card, it shows.  First, their silence when the ADQ first asked for a public inquiry on the construction industry.  Second, their insistance that Duchesneau has no credibility once he started accusing all political parties of illegal financing.  They spend the last 2 years positioning him as Quebec's Elliot Ness, tried to recruit him, but once the mud they were slinging came back to them, he was just... a media whore.  Interesting attitude...

Then, all this illegal financing by people around Marois.  The not-illegal-but-totally-immoral circumvention of zoning laws to build his manor, on lands acquired for 1$ from the governement, while both he and Marois were holding public offices.  Then, the generous pension fund, increased 2fold by Marois while she was Minister of Finance to her husband, head of the Société Générale de Financement, wich lost 1 billion$ while he was there.  While the PQ used our money for the same kind of politically motivated financing they want to do again.  It seems people like you and Grey Fox never learn from our mistake.  Somehow, this idea of having a country seems more important than good governance, honesty and integrity.  Don't ask me to follow you on this.  Quebec should be independant, but not at any cost.

And I refuse to affirm myself by crushing the others to make me "feel good".  Individual rights must be preserved.  Extending law 101 to colleges is simply the dumbest idea of the PQ.  Adults should make their own choices.  If by college an immigrant still prefer english over french, it's his choice, not ours to make.  2 more years in French won't make him love Mari-Mai or Éric Lapointe.

[viper37]

We're all still going to get taxed at ~45%.

55%, now with the PQ.

[viper37]

Um the party that is going to win.  PQ.  You are alll going to be rich like Norway with all your oil and shit.

To be fair, I think a lot of people think that.  We'll get rich just by having oil, we won't even need to drill it. 

[Grey Fox]

We're all still going to get taxed at ~45%.

55%, now with the PQ.

I'm not rich.

[HVC]

Who knows? No one ever quote figures how much goes to the federal government from taxes collected in Quebec.

Surely that is not secret information

Quebec has the fun distinction of being the only province to get equalization payments every year since its inception. They used to share that with the eastern provinces, but then the stuck oil Beverly hillbillies style.

[Grey Fox]

Giant Viper post

I agree with you on lots of points. Our bureaucracy needs to be reduce signafically but the answer isn't thru privatization of those instutions. It's thru fireing lots of union workers. I am not anti-union like you are but everyone can see they hold too much power.

The FTQ might be a mafia driven institutions but that has more to do with being in the Construction industry where cash money is easily avalaible then being a union.

Stop buying the lie of private enterprise creates wealth. In Quebec, private enterprises only wait out to be bought out by America or ROC interests.

Legault wants the kids to work more & study more. Fuck him! I ain't going to work harder for someone's else interest.

Edit : Too much mangle English : DR I have crazy ideas and/or a retard.

[Grey Fox]

Who knows? No one ever quote figures how much goes to the federal government from taxes collected in Quebec.

Surely that is not secret information

Quebec has the fun distinction of being the only province to get equalization payments every year since its inception. They used to share that with the eastern provinces, but then the stuck oil Beverly hillbillies style.

That's because the transfer include money from agreements made from having instituions that the fed gov provides in other provinces.

[viper37]

Surely that is not secret information

Not secret, just incomplete.

We know how much goes to the Federal government in income tax and sales tax, from Quebec.  We don't know all other sources of revenues from the Federal government, where it comes from.  I agree we know most of it, but not all.

We have a basic idea of Federal expenses by provinces, but it does not cover everything.  Again, it covers most of it, not all.

It's not a secret, it's just nobody has ever bothered to check it carefully. The PQ has done their own studies, but they ain't worth much.  They usually assume there would be no change in Quebec's economy after independance and we would even have a superior growth rate to what we're experiencing now.  They also assume we won't need an army, hence 0$ in military spending.  Wich is silly, as even without an army, you'd still need armored vehicles and transport helicopters for a super equipped police force.  And we would need warships to protect our fishing zones.  It's not like the Canadian&American&European fishermans are going to respect our fishing zone if we can't enforce them.  And we need submarines to spy on drug traffickers using the St-lawrence to reach Montreal; they have subs&ships of their own too.  We will also need aircrafts to watch over northern Quebec.  There will be adverse effect in leaving NATO, as our military corporations will probably chose to move toward Ontario or New England if there's no army to give contracts and test products.

[viper37]

Quebec has the fun distinction of being the only province to get equalization payments every year since its inception.

False.  Equalization payments were instituted around the 30s, Quebec has always received less until we created our own taxation system in the 50s.  Then things started to change.

[Malthus]

they didn't reduce expenses and concentrated on their social agenda rather than the economic one.

Really?  Man, total fail.  It is like they are taking a page out of the 'how to suck' playbook the Republicans are writing.

To be fair, the general impression is just the opposite - that the federal Conservatives only pay lip service to their social agenda, and are more focused on management. I dunno how, objectively speaking, they are doing in terms of economics - the fact that Canada is doing reasonably well may have nothing whatsoever to do with them - but they are claiming they can balance the budget by 2015.

This article deals with how Republicans see Canada and it is pretty funny:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/us-election/for-republicans-canada-is-a-convenient-truth/article4500210/

Guess what? Canada is completely different from just two years ago.

As recently as 2010, this country was a socialist gulag where death panels decided who lived and who died. Today, we are a model of low taxes, balanced budgets and responsible energy development.

What happened? Nothing, of course. The country hasn't changed at all. What has changed are conservative talking points in the United States.

Then, they needed Canada to be a model of failure. Now, they need Canada to be a model of success.

It isn't rational, but then we are talking about the Republican Party.

Weather permitting, the GOP will formally choose Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan as presidential and vice-presidential candidates in Tampa this week.

The example of Canada will be invoked at this convention, just as it was four years ago in Minneapolis. Keith Banting, a political scientist at Queen's University, insightfully observed at a conference last week that the party has pivoted 180 degrees in how it views its northern neighbour.

In 2008, Barack Obama's plan to reform health care had Republican candidate John McCain warning of socialized medicine.

"If you like that, go to Canada and go to England and see what kind of health-care system they have," he warned.

After Mr. Obama became President and the Democrats introduced their health-care legislation, things became ridiculous.

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin warned that Obamacare would lead to "death panels" that would decide whether elderly patients received care or were just left to die.

Shona Holmes, who claimed she had to travel to the United States for surgery to remove a brain tumour after being refused care in Canada, appeared in a television ad claiming: "If I'd relied on my government for health care, I'd be dead."

It turned out she had a non-life-threatening cyst, but conservatives leapt on her tale just the same.

Health care is also an issue this year. But the Republicans are focusing primarily on the troubled American economy. And in that narrative, Soviet Canuckistan, as American conservatives once liked to call us, is a huge success story.

"How does a steel manufacturer in Pittsburgh compete with Canadians who are taxed at less than half the tax rate?" Mr. Ryan lamented last week.

The Republicans point with envy to the Conservative government's plans to balance the budget by 2015. And Mr. Romney has vowed to reverse Mr. Obama's decision not to approve the the Keystone XL pipeline.

It's not just the politicians. Neil Cavuto, a commentator on Fox News, recently bemoaned that "the average Canadian household [is] now worth more than the average American household. ... This is awful. Our neighbours to the north are showing us up."

Much of this is, of course, wild exaggeration. While Canadian federal corporate taxes are lower than in the United States, personal taxes south of the border are generally lower, especially for upper-income earners. There is also no federal sales tax.

While Mr. Romney is trying to turn the Keystone pipeline into a wedge issue, informed opinion expects Mr. Obama will approve the pipeline after the election.

And of course, the public health-care system in Canada is not nearly as bad as American critics make it out to be, nor nearly as good as its champions contend.

Overall, both countries muddle along. But in an election season, such bland realities don't matter. Two years ago, as far as American conservatives were concerned, Canada was a Marxist wasteland. Today, it's a paradise.

Go figure.

[HVC]

Quebec has the fun distinction of being the only province to get equalization payments every year since its inception.

False.  Equalization payments were instituted around the 30s, Quebec has always received less until we created our own taxation system in the 50s.  Then things started to change.

I'll have to take your word in regards the the pre-50's version, since i don't know about it. I only know that since 1957 when the formal equalization program started quebec has recieved every year. So in closing, give me back my money!