PQ Caught Showering Money on Friends

To contact us Click HERE

I had originally held this spot for a critique of the proposed changes to Bill 101 that was introduced Wednesday in the National Assembly by the minister in charge, Diane DeCourcy, but happily for us, the government wimped out on just about every major threat pledge that they made during the election campaign, including imposing language restrictions on cegeps and day cares, as well as imposing the francization rules on companies of between 11 and 49 employees, hitherto exempt.

The Bill does extend francization rules to companies with over 26 employees, but it will take twenty years for the OQLF to get around to inspecting each and every one of them.
It is however going to lead to many companies keeping employee levels frozen at the 25 people level, as in France where the number of companies with 49 employees is 2.4 greater than companies employing 50 because of the draconian government measures that kick in, once companies go over the fifty threshold. Read the story

Click to download a PDF of  Bill 14 in English

So certain 'English' Quebec companies here will think hard before hiring that 26th employee, with some opting to use contracting out if necessary to remain free from being under the yoke of OQLF tyranny.
You can read the  provisions of the Bill 14 by clicking on the link on the right. It's a bit ironic that to carry any force in law, the Bill must still be written in English as well as French!

There is one provision of the law that sounds a bit harsh, but one that I can't complain about, that is the measure that requires a student attending English cegep to pass a French test before graduating.
Is that really unreasonable, given where we live?
In fact French should be a required course for all students attending English cegep, just like in high school.
After all, isn't school about teaching real world skills and who can argue that speaking French in Quebec isn't one of the most critical skills non-Francophones need to acquire?

Another aspect to the law that I don't object to is that English students will be now be given priority for valuable  places in English cegeps. Over the last couple of years students with very decent grades were being squeezed out of English cegep by very high achieving francophone students seeking an English education.
It's a bit unfair to francophones with superior grades, but the schools were built for the English community and since the logical alternative of increasing capacity is a cup of poison for the education department, rationing is necessary.
Of course many in the English community will be screaming blue murder over the changes in the law, but realistically we got off easy.

So all in all, Bill 14 was much ado about nothing. The damage could have been much worse.
As the police say" Move along, nothing to see here...."

Now let us turn the gist of this post, the unconscionable orgy of financial largess being showered upon political friends of the PQ, lucrative government appointments in high places that have an astounding cost attached to the public purse.

When the Pauline Marois campaigned on a platform of doing things differently than the Liberals, nobody thought that it meant that the PQ would be even worse abusers of the system!
One of the very first acts of the new government signalled that when it comes to integrity, taxpayers were to be treated to the same sleaze the PQ accused its Liberal predecessors of mastering.
So much for the promise of a new broom sweeping clean the stain of corruption and political opportunism!
Just three weeks after the PQ won its narrow Parliamentary minority, the orgy of political appointments began, starting with the naming of a defeated PQ candidate, Nicolas Girard,  to a plum job at the Agence Métropolitaine de Transport, the agency charged with transit planning for the region Montreal.

"Girard lost his seat in the Montreal riding of Gouin to Québec Solidaire co-spokesperson Françoise David....
....Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault denounced the appointment as cronyism.
"Mr. Girard, with all his skills, doesn't have any experience in management. So this is exactly what the Parti Québécois had been denouncing: partisanship over ability," Legault said.
The presidency of the AMT carries a salary of about $170,000 a year, well more than the basic MNA salary of $86,242 plus certain expenses." Link

And so for Pauline and the PQ, it was off to the races, or rather to the political pig trough invoking the timed-honoured political payoff device known as "Jobs for the Boys"

This week, opposition parties were furious with the disclosure of the obscene compensation package offered Quebec's new ambassador to the United States delegate-general to New York, André Boisclair, when it was discovered by a journalist, while perusing the Official Gazette, (the government weekly publication, detailing those government decrees passed in cabinet, not subject to parliamentary approval) that Mr. Boisclair was offered an added perk worth millions, to take the job in New York.

That deal included a permanent post as a highly paid civil servant that would survive his three year term in New York, something so outrageous that after a firestorm of controversy, the government was forced to take back the offer. Read: Marois retracts sweetheart deal

Once again the Marois government demonstrated its true nature, improvisation and incompetence, stumbling from one disaster to another, on its way to becoming, quite frankly, a laughingstock.

In explaining how Pauline lurches from one disastrous decision to another, Joanne Marcotte a leading Quebec conservative described it best in a panel discussion on TV..
She told the panel that Pauline likes to makes decisions by consensus, and listens to what her cabinet colleagues recommend.
The trouble, as Madame Marcotte describes, is that the ministers are all idiots and that the decisions arrived at the cabinet table are all basically flawed, Ha! Ha!

At any rate, all the opposition and media criticism was focused on the financial aspects of the appointment, careful not to attack Mr. Boisclair's qualifications, reputation or bone fides.

So let me do exactly that.
Mr. Boisclair is under-qualified for the job, plain and simple.

Just about the only thing in favour of his nomination is the fact that he speaks good English, a fact that eliminated 99% of those PQ elements that were vying for the plushest job that the government has to offer. Sadly, when it comes to good English, the PQ ranks are decidedly thin, unlike in the old days, where being fluent in English was de rigueur for the PQ leadership.

Boisclair is a dropout, who started but never finished an undergraduate university degree. Like many under-educated politicians with higher political aspirations, he sought to boost his C/V by attending a college-like school that has limited entrance requirements, one that would allow him to obtain a higher degree without ever obtaining a lower degree. How's that for honesty.

The school that Boisclair chose is the impressive sounding John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University where it seems that the only entrance requirements are that the applicant be public persona and one who can pony up the $100,000 that the course eats up.

Poof! After two short years, Boisclair 'earns' the impressively sounding  Master's in Public Administration, this without ever graduating university!

I've walked into many a politician's, lawyers and business executive office and seen these extended learning degrees hung on the wall masquerading as the real McCoy. The truth is that they are only slightly harder to earn than a diploma from the Acme Driving School, and like the driving school, no applicant with the ready, is turned down.
And so it came as no surprise that in praising Mr. Boisclair's qualifications, Pauline Marois made it a point to mention that he was a graduate of a school associated with Harvard University, proving that it is possible to fool the people almost all of the time.

So it seems that the $100,000 investment certainly paid off and now the Quebec government can boast a 'Haavid man' in New York!
I hope Mr. Boisclair will take advantage of his 'degree' and join the snooty Harvard Club of New York, just down the street from the storied Algonquin Hotel, a bastion of the privileged and accomplished, with membership limited to Harvard alumni, which I guess he is entitled to claim, having bought earned his way in.
There he can pretend to be worthy to rub shoulders with true titans of industry, science, the arts, academia and government.
I remember having a wonderful lunch in the historic panelled dining room and while visiting the facilities, standing shoulder to shoulder sandwiched in between none other than Henry Kissinger and a future President of the United States. Unfortunately, maintaining the urinal etiquette, I resisted the temptation to strike up a conversation, but ahem... I digress.

Contrary to what Pauline Marois has told us about his many qualifications, Boisclair goes to New York as an idiot abroad, out of his depth, out of his league and with a network of contacts thinner than a runway model during New York's fashion week.
He's got no background in finance, nor any contacts in the business world other than his lobbying job, representing a shale gas company out of Calgary, eager to get their hands on drilling rights in Quebec.

Boisclair isn't particularly plugged into any of New York's large ethnic communities, be it Italian, Jewish, Black or Latino and he's got no network going for him among politicians or business people.

New Yorkers, like all Americans are not particularly fond of the French, and a Quebecer who represents a socialist tax and spend government won't go over big in the Big Apple. Worse still, shilling for Quebec sovereignty and the breakup of America's most loyal ally is not something that  will make him many friends or put him on the 'A' list.

Compared to his predecessor, the worldly, eminently competent and supremely connected John Parisella, it is like replacing a Itzhak Perlman with your daughter's violin teacher.

And so Boisclair's lifetime gravy train has derailed, he will not be joining the civil service after his appointment ends, unless the PQ is in power and deems to shower him with more government largess.
For Boisclair, it is a case of close, but no cigar, he'll have to content himself to the $100k plus pension that awaits him for his service in the National Assembly.
The poor lad.....

According to Pauline Marois, the Boisclair compensation package was reasonable, but the negative public reaction convinced her that perhaps she should reconsider. And so Marois promised that she won't do these deals again, opting to form a hiring committee to take the blame, figure out the right thing to do in these cases.

Similar deal as Boisclair, a lifetime job!

But Marois' mea culpa is a bit hard to take when she fails to address the issue of another recent appointment, that of Pierre Baril, who got the same deal as Boisclair when he was parachuted into the head job at the BAPE, the agency that decides whether proposed projects can go ahead based on environmental concerns.
Baril, a militant ecologist, was installed by the then Minister of the Environment, Daniel Breton, another militant ecologist, who cleaned house at the BAPE, giving it a new activist leftist/environmental political direction.

Mr. Baril received the same deal as Boisclair, that is a commitment that he be placed in the civil service once his term at BAPE was up, at a salary of over $150K(indexed) until retirement!
You can download a PDF of the cabinet decree describing the conditions of his job, which has the same provision as in the now former Boisclair agreement. Read the Decree{Fr}

So why hasn't Marois not reversed Mr. Baril's deal as well?
Probably because it hasn't been publicized and Marois is certainly not volunteering to open up another can of embarrassment of her own accord.
Perhaps the media will soon wake up soon, I certainly hope so.

Now a word on this 'permanency' in the civil service, that has been the subject of much discussion in the media of late.
What it means is that once you get a job in the civil service, you are entitled to 100% job security, you cannot be demoted or fired under normal circumstances.

It means that when Mr. Baril transfers into the civil service once his job at BAPE is over, he will be guaranteed the same $150k+ salary (indexed) until he retires!

The farce of  'permanency' is manifested after every change in government.
The deputy ministers loyal to the previous government cannot be fired to make way for new blood and so a great big game of musical chairs is played, where these senior civil servants are transferred about to different departments, but unlike the kindergarten game, no one is ever left 'out.'
Those who are unwanted are just transferred to other departments to twiddle their thumbs in overpaid make-believe jobs, while they wait out the years in anticipation of  retirement. Sweet!

A final note on the Boisclair affair.
Jean-François Lisée, the minister under who Boisclair was to work, defended the 'permanency'  aspect to  the appointment with gusto in the first days of the controversy, at one point telling reporters that Lawrence Cannon, the Ambassador to France was also given a permanent job in the federal civil service.
That fact turned out to be 100% false and after being called out over the mistake by the media, Lisée was forced to grovel out an apology, to the National Assembly, the media and Mr. Cannon himself.
I guess Mr. Lisée is learning the hard way that his habit of fitting facts to suit his position may work in the blogosphere, but not in government, where every word he utters is weighed for accuracy.
I'm sure that in Lisée's case there will many more such gaffes, his penchant for distortion  just too ingrained.

Oh..Ohh... Oh.. One final, final note.

I can't help but see the delicious irony in Mr. Breton's appointment of his good friend, Pierre Baril, as the head of BAPE.
The ex-Environment Minister lost his cabinet post in a cloud of controversy and returns to the back benches at $85K a year (instead of the $150k ministerial salary,) with zero job security.

In the meantime, the guy he appointed to BAPE, Mr. Baril, is guaranteed a $150K indexed salary until he retires, at which time he will collect a healthy pension.

Karma's a bitch!