Quebec has the country’s highest taxes, second-largest bureaucracy and heaviest public debt.

So, perhaps it’s not so surprising that a pro-vincial business federation would propose setting up yet another government agency to help get more large-scale economic-
development projects off the ground.

The Quebec Federation of Chambers of Commerce recently released a study that looked at what went wrong with two cancelled megaprojects — a natural gas-fired electricity plant near Montreal and a new casino complex close to the downtown core.

The cancellation of these projects cost Quebec almost $2 billion in immediate economic benefits and thousands of jobs, according to the study. The federation blamed the cancellations on opposition from special-interest groups and complained that Quebec suffers from economic “paralysis.”

The federation also presented a survey indicating that most Quebecers favour large-scale projects and believe pressure groups have too much power.

The federation placed some blame for the cancellations on the media, which was judged to have given too much coverage to activists and not enough to project promoters.

The result is that environmental and other interest groups have become the tail wagging the economic dog in Quebec, says Françoise Bertrand, president of the Quebec Federation of Chambers of Commerce.

“We live in a society in which, unfortunately, words such as profit, globalization, productivity and competition are taboo for certain Quebecers,” says Bertrand, whose organization represents 164 chambers of commerce and 57,000 businesses.

The federation is proposing the creation of an “economic analysis agency” that would be staffed by economists who would “neutrally” examine economic aspects of projects and the consequences of their cancellations.

The federation’s complaints echo those of former premier Lucien Bouchard, who last year led a non-partisan group of personalities in signing a manifesto entitled Pour un Québec lucide (For a clear-eyed vision of Quebec). It warned that Quebec had to become more open to change or risk becoming “a fossil from the 20th century.”

It’s hard to argue with the idea that Quebec’s economic performance is sluggish. Statistics show investment in Quebec grew by just 17.5% between 1995 and 2005, compared with 32% in Ontario and 47% in Canada as a whole. The net creation of businesses in Quebec was just 0.3% between 1998 and 2002, compared with 3% in the rest of Canada.

On the other hand, the projects Bertrand was lamenting had clear problems; opposition groups were able to mobilize public opinion for a reason.

Loto-Québec, backed by Cirque du Soleil, wanted to move its Montreal casino from the former Expo 67 site on Île Notre-Dame to a site near downtown. But the $1.1-billion project would have brought the casino close to some of Montreal’s poorest neighbourhoods. There were concerns it would have boosted problem gambling, worsened rampant social problems in the area and increased associated crime, including theft and loansharking.

And the Suroît natural gas power-generating station was assailed by a broad coalition of environmental groups concerned about emissions.

Perhaps it isn’t special-interest groups or the media who should be blamed for cancelled projects but, rather, the project promoters themselves for presenting schemes that are ill-conceived and genuinely
unpopular. IE