I wouldn’t be able to write three decent columns (I hope) a week without some of our readers.
One of them just made me realize things with particular clarity.
You have obviously heard about Northvolt’s lithium battery mega-factory project in Montérégie.
Big, big project from a young, young company which has thought big, big and now finds itself in big, big difficulties.
Formerly
“It’s the batting average that counts,” said François Legault.
He’s not wrong.
Governments support various projects. Some work, others don’t, and it’s the overall assessment that allows us to make a well-founded judgment.
However, let’s look at the Northvolt affair (and so many others here) in historical perspective.
On a website under the Ministry of Education, you will find the content of secondary level history and geography courses, renamed here Univers social.
It’s very well done. Simple, clear, fair. Hours of fun.
Here is how an educational capsule describes the economic policy of Maurice Duplessis in the 1950s:
“Like its predecessors, the Duplessis government relies on economic liberalism to attract foreign companies. To do this, it grants these companies low-cost forestry and mining concessions, assures them of low levels of taxation and gives them great freedom of action. In addition, it covers the cost of certain infrastructure to facilitate the exploitation of resources, for example by building roads. Finally, it keeps the minimum wage and social security contributions at low levels, while barely regulating labor standards.”
You can guess where this reader wanted to take me.
Reread carefully.
Is what was done almost 75 years ago so different from what we do today?
We are rolling out the red carpet for foreign companies.
We sign agreements that are so advantageous for them that we are not sure of getting our money back if things go wrong.
We are building the necessary infrastructure for them at our expense.
And when Duplessis once made sure to keep the minimum wage low, is it really different from having wooed Northvolt by pointing out our wages are lower than the North American average?
Has our basic economic model, despite the great talk about technology and modernity, changed so much since that time?
However, let us have the honesty to recognize that this way of doing things is not at all exclusive to the CAQ.
Laugh
The only thing that has undoubtedly changed profoundly is social charges.
But even there, I do not exclude that people more competent than me could establish the considerable tax advantages often granted to these foreigners who arrive here promising sea and world.
As my reader says, they must be dying of laughter in Toronto!
May this reader find here the expression of my gratitude.
