Separatismo en Quebec

Quebec GDP does not keep pace with the rest of Canada, while the most productive population is falling. The most relevant companies and banks left Quebec before the first referendum.

The example of a sovereignist movement in Quebec, so valued by the Catalan separatists, has a less positive side: the gradual economic deterioration of the Canadian region. From 1981 to 2006, Quebec GDP grew by 2.3 percent on average, compared with 3 percent in the rest of Canada. This growth gap, prolonged over three decades, meant that the increase in wealth rose by 76.6 percent in Quebec, compared to 109.9 percent in the rest of the country, according to a report by the Economic Montreal.

Right now, the average Canadian is 6,000 dollars (5,400 euros) richer than its equivalent in Quebec. The most populous and wealthy provinces (Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia) gaze from afar at their once prosperous Quebecers, and it is not surprising to see a change in Quebec's collective consciousness.

In 1976, the independence party Quebecois Party (PQ) won the elections and placed its leader as prime minister of the province. There were two referendums of independence: in 1980 and 1995. The secession lost in both cases, although in the second by a very narrow margin. Since the very beginning of independence, the Canadian province has been suffering from a long economic and demographic decline. The first place of Catalonia at the beginning of the autonomic process in terms of wealth also belongs to the past.

Those who crave independence tend to ignore this negative economic impact. It is, however, unquestionable that the uncertainty of political developments has had clear economic repercussions. For the time being, there is an effect on financial markets with interest rate hikes to finance public debt. During the last provincial elections, when it appeared that the PQ could form a government and call for a third referendum, provincial bonds soared above those of neighboring Ontario, an expense that fell a few months after the elections. Uncertainty also affects stocks and shares of companies. According to experts, the 1995 referendum particularly affected Quebec-based companies.

Escape from banks and companies

The Spanish bank has warned that it could leave Catalonia in case of secession. In Quebec it already happened before the only threat of independence. Following the victory of the PQ in 1976, major Canadian banks moved their headquarters from Montreal, Quebec's financial center, to Toronto. They never came back. Even the Bank of Montreal has de facto de facto headquarters in Toronto, and not in the city that gives it its name, despite being registered there.

Something similar happened with companies and multinationals. According to a report by the Economic Institute of Montreal, between 1978 and 1981 (with the announcement of the first referendum), 30 of the largest Canadian companies left. They literally left Quebec. However, Toronto, the capital of Ontario, has established itself as the economic and financial center of Canada. Today it is thought to privatize many of the companies that remained, being a taboo the branch of hydroelectric energy. If the privatization of Québec's largest public sector takes place, it will be interpreted as a serious wake-up call to movements whose aim is to make Québec a nation-state. This would suggest that Québec's dream of independence has led to economic mismanagement for years.

The demographic problem

In 1951, Quebec housed 28.9 percent of the Canadian population. The percentage has fallen to 23.6, highlighting negatively the exodus of young people to other provinces of the country from which they want to separate. In fact, between 1981 and 2006, the population under 15 years old fell by 12 percent in Quebec, while growing by 7 in the rest of the country. The most productive population range (between 16 and 40 years) barely grew 17 percent in those 25 years, according to the Montreal Institute of Economics, compared to a 40 percent increase in the rest of Canada.

Since the 1970s, the number of people who have emigrated exceeds half a million, highlighting, moreover, population aging, which worsens the debt problem: more pensions and more health care with fewer contributors.

The two large metropolitan areas, Toronto and Montreal, had approximately the same number of inhabitants in 1976. But while the former has more than doubled its number, Montreal has barely grown 30 percent. It should be remembered that Canada is a country forged in immigration (10 percent). While it is true that the so-called "ethnic vote" has diversified and the PQ has immigrants in its ranks, most of them still feel both Quebecers and Canadians and therefore opposed to secession.

Quebec is the only region with a Francophone majority (81 percent) and is one of two Canadian provinces with a predominantly Catholic population. Religion has ceased to play a determining role in the nationalist dispute. The austerity The financial spiral is serious. This is the conclusion of the Godbout Montmarquette report of April 2014. An independent, non-partisan analysis of public finances by economists Luc Godbout and Claude Montmarquette of the Universities of Sherbrooke and Montreal reveals that the deficit is more than double Of the PQ, and that it will continue to grow if significant and necessary reforms are not implemented. Expenditure increases at an average rate of 5 percent per annum, always above its budget, ending up increasingly indebted the province. For this reason, the Executive receives recommendations to contain public spending and optimize the bureaucratic machinery, with cuts in government offices and also in public subsidies. It is not surprising, then, that in the rejection of the rupture with Canada the fears that the overlapping of economies would end the welfare state, the "doctrine of clarity", the question of the 1995 referendum, confused , Partially motivated the adjusted result. The "doctrine of clarity" arose precisely to avoid this ambiguity in the future. Corrected the error of the government by dodging the debate. Something similar has happened in Spain. The Supreme Court ruled that to legitimize the negotiation on a secession was necessary to clearly determine the question, necessary majority and framework of the negotiations. How would these concepts be defined? The Tribunal left to the political actors their definition, and the Ottawa Government reacted with a law of clarity to which the Quebec Executive counterposed its own norm. The doctrine of the Supreme Canadian discards both the unilateral rupture of a province after a Voting as the central immobility ignore a clearly expressed democratic mandate. The reason: both lead to a dead end. Impossible the agreed solution. The Court recognizes the right of the Government of any province to consult its population and formulate the form of the question of the referendum. At the same time it affirms the legitimacy of the role of the federal government. Thus, the clarity of the process serves as the basis of the pactos.Finally the Canadian institutions have recognized the differential fact of Quebec. Even with no state of its own, Québec has democratic guarantees within a federal framework. Differential status After the referendum in 1995, Québec's distinctive fact was recognized and a new constitutional arrangement was promised that did not occur, or because it involved appealing to the Rest of Canada and could not be seen as something designed exclusively to please Quebec. Functions have been decentralized to meet some provincial aspirations like those of Quebec. All provinces have the right to assume the powers currently exercised only by Quebec, and Alberta and Ontario have expressed their interest in assuming these powers. Yes, there have been constitutional amendments. In this context, the 1996 Constitutional Amendment Act stipulates that Parliament must obtain the consent of Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, two of the Atlantic provinces comprising at least 50 percent of the region's population, Before proposing a constitutional amendment, which in turn implies a tacit right of veto. The doctrine that the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, began to elaborate on "opening federalism" includes respect for the jurisdictional and constitutional organs of Provinces and their role in the federation, recognition of the existence of a fiscal imbalance between the center and the provinces, and acceptance of the principle of a specific international role for Quebec