Stimulating Stagnation; Plan Nord Going South

Quebec, not surprisingly, thinks stimulus is a good idea.

If Quebec's business model and attitude towards business were properly adjusted to begin with, then yeah, maybe stimulus has a chance. It's deeper than that though. Unemployment, low productivity, reliance on Federal transfers, high taxes, low high school graduation rates etc., are all major problems Quebec needs to address.

This is gonna go nowhere just like it did in the USA.

$260 million debt so less use more public money to jump start the economy. 

Waste, waste, waste.

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And Plan Nord. What can I say? It's off to a rough start and already lacking in funds. It doesn't help New England isn't all that interested in Quebec's plans.

"This story is about the New Hampshire mentality as much as it is about Hydro-Quebec corporate power. New Hampshire politicians respect their constituency because the people truly hold them accountable. Interestingly, Republicans and Democrats have identical responses as witnessed by Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich’s comments about Northern Pass to New Hampshire’s voters. He said, “I would only sign a permit that had a buried transmission system that had no visual damage to the beauty of Northern New Hampshire.”

One can only imagine Hydro-Quebec’s surprise with New Hampshire’s statewide response to their wires. After all, Hydro-Quebec seems to be in expansion mode as they build transmission lines across Canada.

St Hilarion, Quebec’s Innu community is currently fighting what seems to be a losing battle against transmission wires by Hydro-Quebec with a program called Plan Nord, a multibillion-dollar scheme that will open the north to mining and energy companies. To the Innu, their way of life is being threatened. Plan Nord has been voted down in two successive referenda, yet Hydro-Quebec has still built towers in the ancestral lands without the Innu’s consent."

I don't know why they refer to Hydro Quebec as a "corporation." The day it privatizes is the day one can call it such. Until then, it's a government monopoly and as you can see, the government monopoly motto is "fuck you because we say so."