Right in the centre - Everything involves the economy

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Published on Thursday, June 4, 2015

By Ken Waddell

The Neepawa Banner

One of Quebec’s most famous provincial politicians Jacques Parizeau, the man who lead the 1995 referendum for Quebec separation has died. He still stands in history for Quebec separation, alongside Rene Levesque who lead the 1980 referendum and Lucien Bouchard.

Quebec separation is a desperately nurtured myth, propped up by aspiring politicians, feeding on Quebec discontent with a variety of issues. It’s a socialist-fed movement that is used as a club to beat the Rest of Canada (ROC) over the head to obtain concessions. It has worked pretty well when you evaluate how much money goes from the ROC to Quebec every year and continues to do so.

Quebec, not unlike Manitoba, could be a “have” province if the economy and attitude was adjusted. Quebec is huge, has a large population, is multicultural, rich in heritage, history and resources. The founding city in Canada was established in 1608 and my wife and I visited Quebec in 2008, the four hundredth anniversary of the founding. Quebec is a fantastic place.

But there have been problems. Just like in Manitoba, rural Quebec, the heritage and historical heart of the province has been all but abandoned by the central government. Billions of tax dollars have been poured into urban infrastructure all the while rural and northern economies have been left to rot on the vine. Rural Quebec has been largely ignored. Rural Quebec, or what’s left of it, is lead around by the nose with a ring, like a subservient animal by the urban, and often touted as superior, Montreal. 

Sound familiar? While Montreal has less than 20 per cent of the province’s population and Winnipeg has 60 per cent of Manitoba’s, the large number of votes in each city carries a huge sway in the voting. Some would argue that it’s a democracy and so the majority rules. That’s true but it doesn’t mean that the majority shouldn’t also think, care or plan for the future. Urban centres are often called the “engines of the economy” but the citizens and politicians who believe that forget where their fuel comes from. The fuel comes in many forms. It may mean employees, it may mean food, it may mean markets for urban produced goods. It may mean tourism destinations, it can mean a lot of things. When an economy builds up only its urban centres, it will fall.

Manitoba isn’t doing well and neither is Quebec. When you have such a disparity among rural and urban, between urban and northern, you create a self fueled problem.

What many people don’t understand is that everything involves economic development. Education and the related employment and infrastructure spending has an economic development impact to it. So does health care and maybe even more. All government departments have an economic spin-off that is important to the economy of the respective areas. When government spending is concentrated in the urban areas, at the expense of the rural areas, the rural areas starve. That’s happened in Quebec and in Manitoba.

Government departments have been given a very narrow mandate. When confronted about how health decisions affect the local economy, the health officials will testily inform you that their mandate has nothing to do with economic development. They will say their mandate is to provide health care at the least possible cost. That of course is a very narrow view. At least possible cost to whom? The government, of course, which in turn means the urban voters. If you only have health testing facilities purposefully located in large centres, it may be at least cost to the system but the individual pays the cost of getting there, staying in the larger centre for the duration of the need and all at personal cost. So I ask again, at whose’s cost? At the cost of the rural or northern citizen be it financially, resource-wise or emotionally.

Both Manitoba and Quebec need to put a lot more thought into how to develop their resources throughout the whole province or they will both become a few urban centres surrounded by a rural and northern wasteland.