Let’s see we had that great movie “12 years a Slave.” We had “7 Years in Tibet.”
And now the Quebec production “15 Years of Reflection.”
For years, our politicians have boasted about Quebec’s squeaky-clean election laws with certain arrogance that other provinces and countries were not quite as pure as Quebec.
Quebec could be a model to the world in political financing largely because companies were not allowed to donate.
Well we were a model all right: a model of what not to do or how to behave.
From the Charbonneau Commission we learned just how bad it was.
We learned about the strawman tactic, where employees and relatives donated to political parties and then were reimbursed illegally; a nefarious scheme in which favours were exchanged and friends bought.
It’s estimated in 2007 alone, 37 percent of political donations in Quebec were raised through illegal means.
But the galling part, as we found out this week, is that our guardian of Quebec’s political financing virginity knew about it all along.
Instead of doing anything, the Director General of Elections decided it would be better to reflect on what to do.
Reflect for 15 years.
At the DGE’s office they talked, and discussed, and reflected.
And then reflected some more on what to do.
An office with a staff of hundreds. Must have been a lot of deep thinking going on.
Some guardian.
That’s the thing in Quebec. We love to reflect and think things over, and over, and over.
The time and money we spend on reflection is astounding.
We love commissions and committees and what the French call les tables des concertation.
I have a feeling we will continue to reflect on a new train to the West Island and the airport for years to come without much being done about it.
Same with a new metro or train to the east.
Montreal is currently reflecting on whether to bring tramways back to the city. Don’t count on that anytime soon.
We reflect on major construction projects and then it seems to take forever to complete them.
We reflected on completing Highway 13 for decades until it became normal to have a highway that really leads to nowhere.
We reflected on Mirabel Airport, which was to be the end point of highway 13: the airport of the future has become a thing of the past.
Now they are about to tear down the building that cost us hundreds of millions of dollars.
Quebec is forever a symbol of bad planning, greed and stupidity.
Of course many Quebecers are in a constant state of reflection over whether they are Canadians or not or whether they just like using the passport and getting those support cheques from Alberta; the ones who prefer some sort of divorce while maintaining bedroom privileges.
Which brings us to Scotland and the wisdom shown by the voters there.
Since my mother is a MacDonald, I will take some credit.
The bevy of PQ MNAs including the next PQ messiah PKP, who went to Scotland for the vote, look pretty silly.
They figured a yes vote would relaunch the separatist movement here.
I hope they at least enjoyed some haggis.
In a fast-changing world with so much noise and uncertainty, the Scots chose the best path.
We can hope their grievances can be addressed in a fair manner because the alternative would have been like Humpty Dumpty.
No turning back, the union never could have been put back together.
And they knew it.
