Editor and committed citizen, the author taught literature at college; she is president of the governing board of a primary school and a member of the editorial committee of Letters Quebecois. She co-directed and co-wrote the collective work Shock treatments and tartlets. Critical assessment of management of COVID-19 in Quebec (All in all).
While the unlimited general strike of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) is upon us and negotiations with the public sector are stalling, the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) decided last Monday to extend from 5 to 7 million dollars for two Los Angeles Kings preparatory games in Quebec. A desolate spectacle, which one would almost say was orchestrated by Elvis Gratton.
The announcement was poorly received, to put it mildly. These 5 to 7 million dollars may only be a drop in the budgetary ocean of our “tight” finances (according to the Minister of the Economy, Eric Girard), they are a strong symbol which has had the effect of a cold shower on many Quebecers strangled by inflation — starting with the employees of the Common Front and the FAE.
This is because after three and a half years of pandemic marked by school closures, the immense educational catch-up still underway and multiple flowers sent to our exceptional teachers at a press conference (it’s so beautiful, vocation, thank you for holding the fort!), we would have expected that the government would not come to this; so that the purse strings and conditions align a little better with the lips.
In order to avoid a strike in the middle of the school year, the FAE reduced its demands by half on September 7. Welcoming this outstretched hand, Minister Sonia LeBel simply invited other unions to do the same, while offering teaching staff salary increases that do not even match the annual inflation rate. Let’s try to remember this in a few days, when the Legault government declares that teachers are taking the population hostage.
Everything that shines…
While negotiations with the public sector are stalling, the government is putting a lot of energy and money on another front: the battery sector. Subsidized to the tune of $7 billion by the State with the aim of making Quebec a leading player on the world stage of the green economy, the Northvolt gigafactory will be built without an impact study environmental (we will only study the battery recycling portion of the case). However, after encountering closed doors and heavily redacted documents, The duty we learned that the factory will be located in an area containing 74 wetlands and dozens of animal species, including three threatened with extinction.
But we must believe that deviating from the basic rules is justified in certain circumstances. We must appreciate our luck; It is us, Quebec, that Northvolt chose to build its gigafactory! Think big and green, too bad if we eradicate wetlands to succeed in our ecological transition, which will involve the construction of new hydroelectric dams and the extraction of lithium on Quebec soil.
The CAQ is thirsty for a great legacy, signature projects of which it will be “proud”: but the pursuit of these must not blind us or make us turn corners. Not all social projects involve concrete action or the creation of thousands of jobs. It is undoubtedly less marketable to boast of having increased the retention rate of teaching or nursing staff in an assessment, but it is oh so necessary and useful.
Subsidizing billionaires
Back to the Kings. Their payroll is more than 84 million for 2023-2024. Their highest paid player earns 11 million alone; the lowest paid (let’s wipe our tears) makes $775,000. These billionaire organizations that hire millionaires do not need public funds, especially since we know that the Canadian was ready to play in the national capital without state aid — but “they have- you, the affair, the Americans”! We must give ourselves the illusion that the Videotron Center is not a white elephant by populating it from time to time. In 2021, the City of Quebec paid $2.75 million to Quebecor to cover its deficit.
In these difficult times, the dollars from the indecent proposal made to the Kings (those from LA, in the plural, not those from Memphis nor its personifiers) could have been used for so many other more useful projects. Seven million more that would have been added to the 10 million announced for food banks in the economic update would have almost allowed them to finish the year, their estimated needs amounting to $18 million.
The people do not need hockey subsidized out of their pockets. He needs a health system that does not hold up with scotch tapeschools not moldy, teachers whose task does not risk leading them to overwork, “guardian angels” not burned out by compulsory overtime (in these exceptional times, it seems to me that the parliamentary holiday break is indecent, there are so many urgent problems to resolve; when will there be compulsory overtime for elected officials who voted for a 30% increase?), to eat enough every month, to have housing at a decent price.
These millions promised to the Kings are the symptom of a government which, in its frantic quest for ribbon cutting, too often neglects the truly common good. The times are no longer to think “big”. They must be built together — and that is what FAE members will do starting next week, for the good of our children and education, without strike funds.