Eric Girard’s blunder with his subsidy to the Los Angeles Kings continues to rebound. Sunday, The Journal told us that, according to Luc Robitaille, the arrival of this team in Quebec would cost less than expected because many tickets were sold.
In other words, we’re getting screwed, but less than expected. And we should be happy.
Mr. Girard’s unforgivable error is not so much to have granted 5 to 7 million dollars to a wealthy foreign hockey team to come and play useless matches in Quebec. Everyone can make mistakes.
His inexcusable mistake is that he persists and signs. He thus shows that despite all his diplomas, he does not possess the primary quality to be a minister: judgment.
More serious, his error has become the symbol of a major trend of the CAQ: giving our money to foreign companies under the pretext that one day this squandered money will bring big returns.
- Listen to international politics expert Loïc Tassé on Benoit Dutrizac’s show via QUB radio :
Getting rolled
Mr. Girard explains that he acted impulsively, that he is a big hockey fan. Possible. But then he put his emotions before his reason. This is not what is expected of a Minister of Finance.
Mr. Girard does not realize that this money will be spent largely outside Quebec. He does not understand that at best, the economic benefits of these matches will come at the expense of other activities in Quebec.
Mr. Girard does not see the indecency of granting so much money to a very wealthy foreign organization, while many Quebec sports, artistic or community organizations are told that their coffers are empty.
Mr. Girard does not understand that this kind of waste of money is very badly perceived by his public service, whom he asks, with the effect of inflation, to reduce salaries.
Photo Stevens LeBlanc
Worrying
Mr. Girard’s bad judgment splatters François Legault and the CAQ.
Was it Mr. Girard who proposed tax cuts last year, when the economy was in an inflationary period and when an economic slowdown was looming for this year? This tax-cut money will now have to be borrowed, often from foreigners. Ultimately, this will cost taxpayers more than the initial tax cut.
Is it he who approved the pharaonic subsidies granted to foreign companies in the field of batteries, without weighing the opportunity costs, that is to say how much these billions would have brought in if they were invested in other sectors, including education?
Was he the one who accepted without batting an eyelid that Hydro-Québec sold our surplus electricity to the United States at a bargain price, which now forces us to make massive and urgent investments in electricity production?
The grant to the Kings has become the perfect illustration of the CAQ’s lack of economic judgment. Recent polls show that Quebecers have understood this.
