Entrevue avec Bernard Landry L'avenir de Montréal, l'avenir du Québec

[MTLskyline]

The relationshiop between involvement of government in economic affairs and the prosperity of the people is so obvious I cannot fathom a reason people can keep doing the same thing over again... look how farked Ontario was under Bob Rae government, Mike Harris got a landslide and saved the province and made the best years in its history. Then they elected McGuinty and he went back like Rae and Ontario turned into a have-not province, with flickering lights

Yeah, I am a huge Mike Harris fan. Common sense revolution all the way. I'm hoping that Tim Hudak will boot McGuinty's sorry behind in the next provincial election (2011 or 2012 I think).

 

Hopefully Ontario has learned its lesson with regards to Bob Rae, and should he ever become leader of the Libs, I strongly doubt he'll carry Ontario.

[MTLskyline]

C'est tout ce que t'as trouvé??

 

La 10ième pire contreverse de Charest, Chrétien, Harper, Murolney et j'en passe sont beaucoup pire que ça... voyons donc.

 

Take a look at post 17.

 

Charest has had plenty of controversies, no debate there. Chretien and Mulroney each have had a few as well. From a conservative perspective however, you can't really ask for much more from Stephen Harper's government - unless they were to have a majority. I'm not sure I can remember the last time I strongly disagreed with them on something. (I disagree with making the long-form census voluntary, but I do think that some touchier questions should be removed, and the threat of imprisonment should be removed as well).

[MTLskyline]

In a period where the economy may have needed to be meddled by the goverment. He actually instigated a lot of things and even if they havent all worked out well (Gaspesia) i wont bash him for trying. I'd rather have someone who tries hard and makes some mistakes instead of someone that simply doesn't do anything in fear of critics.

Why did the economy need meddling by the government at that particular time? The late 90s (his time as finance minister) and the early 2000s were notoriously good economic years. Here we stagnated, but I believe that's the direct result of too much government intervention. I suppose that I can't blame him for trying (because I do think he tried) even though I disagree with his economic and political philosophies.

 

That building is actually not bad at all. The complex is very impressive and fits very well on René-Lévesque. Of course it would have been better if it was higher as they should have built one tower instead of two but i dont think that's is decision. Indeed, he ''encouraged'' companies to move into it and so far it has been a success. I dont see how we would have had a ''real office tower'' if he hadn't done it. That is actually a real office tower. As i said before, not high enough but still.

Yes, it is a very attractive building, I don't disagree with you there. But it is entirely government built. The government should not be in the business of building offices for the private sector. That is something that should be left to the market.

 

He didn't force them out, he offered very good incentive so that many chose to leave. Without that there is no way they could have reached a deficit zero and....and that wasn't really really his thing but more of a command by Lucien Bouchard. And above all, the deficit zero was a very good thing even if it did hurt the health care system.

Could that incentive not have been given to the thousands of pencil-pushing civil servants instead? I realize the importance of a balanced budget (I'm a fiscal conservative), but I also believe the wrong place to cut is in the number of nurses. There were many more ways to lower spending than to encourage aging nurses to retire early. Then again, Jean Charest isn't exactly a model of fiscal constraint either. Quebec deserved someone like Mario Dumont.

[Habsfan]

Yes, it is a very attractive building, I don't disagree with you there. But it is entirely government built. The government should not be in the business of building offices for the private sector. That is something that should be left to the market.

 

Agreed. Had CCE not gone up, you can be sure that another project(a PRIVATE one) would have been built! CCe 1 and 2 represent over 750,000 sq feet of office space, we would have seen a few other towers under construction.

Le CCE était une gaffe du gouv Péquiste à ce moment sans parler du Centre des Multimédias, qui est en traîn de se vider, car les locataire n'ont plus droit aux subvention massives du gouv...et les espaces sont trop chers pour les compagnies qui se sont installés là il y a plus d'une décennie de cela!

[acpnc]

He meddled too much in the economy. The long tentacles of government pretty much extended everywhere when he was in charge. Remember the CCE complex? It is because the Quebec government decided to build an office building (and more or less force businesses into it) that we haven't gotten a real office tower since, and likely won't for years.

 

Seems to me that thousands of nurses were forced into retirement during his tenure as well as a cost saving measure. I'm all for saving money, but forcing nurses to retire is not the way to do it. Why not trim the bloated civil service?

 

Every administration has it's good and bad decisions but when it comes to saving money, our minority government in Ottawa has absolutly no lessons to give to anyone. The huge waste of one bilion dollars for the 3 days party for the G8 and G20 is by far the most scandalous decision of all.

 

And seriously what did we get in return????

 

We will not forget this one for the next election.

[Cyrus]

Every administration has it's good and bad decisions but when it comes to saving money, our minority government in Ottawa has absolutly no lessons to give to anyone. The huge waste of one bilion dollars for the 3 days party for the G8 and G20 is by far the most scandalous decision of all.

 

And seriously what did we get in return????

 

We will not forget this one for the next election.

 

You are not at all wrong on this point! What we got in return was people's lives screwed up by not being able to get to work, school, etc in TO and a damaged industry as a result. Why not host G8/G20 on an airbase, security is already very good, plenty of soldiers and military police around, and the airstrip will handle all the planes! Cost maybe 1 M$ not 1 G$!

 

Or the stimulus/// http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/07/27/ottawas-stimulus-fiasco/

 

It is important to note that Landry's "deficit zero" was BS... with all the expenses that were "comptabilisé hors budget"

 

MTLskyline: McGuinty has a very strange way of getting elected, he is very boring and I think it paralyses people to vote for him... that said, the Ontario PC's used to be known as "Big Blue Machine" because that party won every damn election in Ontario with only a handful of exceptions, like Rae and McGuinty, or hell let's look on Wikipedia:

 

It has ruled the province for 80 of the 143 years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985.

LMAO! Modifié 28 juillet 2010 par Cyrus

[Malek]

He meddled too much in the economy. The long tentacles of government pretty much extended everywhere when he was in charge. Remember the CCE complex? It is because the Quebec government decided to build an office building (and more or less force businesses into it) that we haven't gotten a real office tower since, and likely won't for years.

 

CCE? Yes it was a mistake that every govt does, getting involved in the private sector... have you already forgot the billions spent on the auto industry by the CPC in Ontario????

 

At least the CCE (and the project to attract the Multimedia sectore to Montreal) has worked and is doing wonders to Montreal's economy and world image. So I guess that mistake is lessened big time.

 

If those towers were empty, then it would be a totally different story.

 

Let's see how long that auto sector will remain in Ontario even after the bailout, our currency is much stronger than it was when those plants were built, and it seems that in a not so distant future our currency might even be stronger...

[steve_36]

Why did the economy need meddling by the government at that particular time? The late 90s (his time as finance minister) and the early 2000s were notoriously good economic years. Here we stagnated....

 

There's al lot of stagnation in Montreal, stil today, for good and bad reasons, therefor it is necessary, in my book, that the goverment steps in and tries to boost things up otherwise we could be waiting forever. If we we're stagnating then there must have been a good reason because the private sector would have simply taken over.

 

Yes, it is a very attractive building, I don't disagree with you there. But it is entirely government built. The government should not be in the business of building offices for the private sector. That is something that should be left to the market.

 

In a perfect world the private sector would have taken care of it but if it didn't then that must be because there was a reason. I think every goverment would rather see the private sector built such buildings but if it is not doing it then someone has to step in at one point. What is keeping them from doing it at this time in 2010 ?

 

Could that incentive not have been given to the thousands of pencil-pushing civil servants instead?

 

I fully agree with you and i dont understand why it hasn't been done to this day. Charest had plenty of time to do it especially when pushed in the back by ADQ but he decided to do nothing and we are still stuck with a heavy civil servant weight on our shoulder. That issue is beyond my understanding.

 

But Landry is right when mentionning about the feds working ''against'' Montreal and when that happens someone else has to intervene just like many ''goverment officials'' are now trying to save Shell's oil refinery in the east end.

 

At the end, the Cité du Multi-média was a good thing because the private sector has now taken over with the constructions of condos and the area is much better today than it was before Landry.

 

But, because so many factors has played against Montreal over the past 60 years i think it is only normal that the goverment has step in at times in order to assure that Montreal wouldn't be declining. Despite all the negative factors, i think Montreal did very well. Many cities which have been trough lot less has suffered much more than Montreal to the point where their decline is almost irreversible. Detroit, Cleveland, St-Louis, Buffalo, Baltimore (thanks for the intervention of the feds because this city would be gone), Kansas city and to a lesser degree Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

 

Montreal is far from declining even if it sometimes stagnate....

[Cyrus]

 

Let's see how long that auto sector will remain in Ontario even after the bailout, our currency is much stronger than it was when those plants were built, and it seems that in a not so distant future our currency might even be stronger...

 

Not really, most were built during currency roughly at par in the 1960's, except the Bramalea AMC factory that went to Chrysler made in the 1980's... and of course Toyota and Honda... even then, the health-care costs make Canadian plants very competitive against the US and the competitiveness of the plants in general (quality, cost, etc) has been very good in most cases. Note how many US plants have been shuttered over the past 20 years and we had only... Ste.Therese and a Saskatchewan GM factory that closed after WWII (LOL). GM wanted to close the second plant at Oshawa but it ended up making Camaros...

[MTLskyline]

Every administration has it's good and bad decisions but when it comes to saving money, our minority government in Ottawa has absolutly no lessons to give to anyone. The huge waste of one bilion dollars for the 3 days party for the G8 and G20 is by far the most scandalous decision of all.

 

And seriously what did we get in return????

 

We will not forget this one for the next election.

 

If you think that $1 Billion is too much for an international event, you must certainly be frothing at the mouth at the $8.5 Billion Quebec receives in equalization each year (and they still can't balance the books!)