Québec solidaire

I am considering voting for Quebec solidaire based on a conversation with a school dad who suggested that in what is actually not my riding, the QS candidate has a chance of beating the Parti Québécois candidate. In my riding it's Amir Khadr by a wide margin so my vote doesn't matter. But for the other riding where Quebec solidaire is in contention, voting strategically to
Block the PQ might pertain.

So I started reading their platform
and probably shouldn't have. Separatist, supporting the enforcement of French language laws in companies of ten employees or more, a raft of vaguely positive sounding progressive actions but only a few prescriptions for actually pursuing them, nationalizing "strategic" (?) resource extraction, requiring or subsidizing the refining of primary resources locally, whether economically viable or not (which is a bit like saying we should all grow our own food even if a large farm far away can provide more calories for less energetic and financial investment because of economies of scale, and, well, because they're a professional). Which ties in with some vague prescription for subsidizing local food production which appeals to many progressives on a romantic level but which ecologically and economically is not necessarily anything more than a bourgeois conceit, more funding for the arts, etc.

I will admit I've not finished it. Maybe I will do so now....

So now, unfortunately I'm at the point of "holy fuck, who is going to pay for that?"

Nationalize...energy? We should be fostering a distributed grid of energy production where individuals and companies can COMPETE to provide energy most efficiently.

Wow does nationalize rub me the wrong way...the beauty of the market, properly regulated as lightly as possible, is that it relentlessly seeks out efficiency...the soviet union nationalized everything and they went broke which led to those nationalized industries falling into the hands of the oligarchs and a KGB thug becoming the neo tsar of Russia...

In my mind government's role is to create the rules whereby individuals can have the maximum freedom to innovate and create. Not to run industries.

Subsidize transportation by rail or water? Why? If the goal is to reduce carbon then TAX carbon and let the market figure out what's most efficient. Maybe it's rickshaws pulled by hobos, I don't know, but don't start subsidizing one sector in the hopes that somehow you've guessed the magic solution to resource allocation where millions of independent actors have failed...

Minimum wage? Will be higher for a 35 hour work week than for a 40 hour work week? What about for a four hour work week, even higher?


I'm now going to have to read the real ass hattery proposed by the Parti Québécois to convince myself that if Quebec solidaire can beat the PQ in Mercier, they should still get my vote.

I wanted to be won over but I'm not. I find the platform long on wishful thinking - a lot of promises, very few mechanisms for achieving them, incredibly statist and interventionist, while I believe the government should set the rules and then let the citizens run the show.

From reading the document I'm deeply ambivalent. I'd like to believe that I broadly agree with most of the intentions, if not the approach to achieving them, but I'm not sure I do...

There's a real philosophical disconnect for me as to what areas the government should be involved in and what things it should leave well enough alone. I don't really believe that subsidies actually create sustainable or viable industries - why should a bunch of bureaucrats or politicians have any better idea than the rest of us on how to allocate our resources?

I think greenhouse gases is a perfect example. If you decide there's too much carbon in the atmosphere, what's the least intrusive way to encourage a society to reduce their emissions? If you want to encourage non fossil fuel energy, do you set up a bureaucracy to run it, or do you open up the grid so granny can feed in the electricity she's generating capturing granddad's farts?

I will still quite possibly vote Quebec solidaire in Mercier, but it will be in the hopes of blocking Pauline Marois.

If there's any hope of Quebec solidaire becoming a real place for progressives to place their votes, there's a lot of work, and transparency and soul searching as to what kind of government they actually would form, that needs to go on.