I'm writing this especially for my American readers.
Liberal Americans often point to Canada as a land full of wonderful social programs to meet the needs of the less fortunate.
Barack Obama was elected to bring this "Hope and Change" to America.
Among the Canadian provinces that best epitomizes this "progressive" vision of society is Quebec.
Quebec has universal health care, $7 a day daycare, generous parental leave benefits. And so on and so forth.
Guess what?
Yesterday 50 000 Quebeckers went to the National Assembly to protest the latest budget.
They are sick to death of tax and spend.
I am from Quebec City. And I can tell you, unless a union or some other large scale body is behind a protest, residents of Quebec City don't get up and protest for anything.
This protest shows how pissed off they are. 50 000 people at a grassroots protest in Quebec City (in a province of close to 8 million people) is unheard of. Metro Quebec City is only 1 million (and you have to go way out to get that number).
The moral of the story: if you implement "progressive" policies in government, expect the taxpayers to revolt. Tax and spend is not a viable fiscal policy. Eventually the middle class gets squeezed, and they are not going to take it.
Understand that the conservative, republican ideology that you're all familiar with is alien to Quebecers. Quebeckers once embraced "social democracy". It was ideologically de rigueur in every public space.
The middle class can read their pay stubs. NO MORE!
Here's a video of the protest. You may not be able to understand French. Speed ahead of the interviews and watch the images. They're pretty impressive. They may me homesick for my home town.
