The challenge of introducing free market ideas in Quebec

Discours du président du CPQ, Michel Kelly-Gagnon, prononcé au Club universitaire de Montréal(Montréal, 21 novembre 2006)

Mesdames et Messieurs, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is an honour and a privilege to be here tonight.

I would like to introduce my topic today by first sharing with you a revealing anecdote that forever changed my views in regard to debating free market issues.

Three years ago, I was invited to participate in a one-on-one debate about the impact of globalization on South-East Asian countries.

After spending lots of time in research and preparation, I was quite confident when I showed up with an impressive body of statistics and figures that proved without a doubt how much globalization was lifting millions out of poverty.

The evidence I brought in was so overwhelming that indeed it never got challenged - not not even once - by my opponents during the debate.

But despite the strength of my evidence and the indisputable demonstration I gave, I ended up losing the debate, according to all of my friends who attended the event.

My counterpart clearly won over me because he kept invoking emotional arguments.

He accused me of preaching "American" values. He said I had no idea of what Quebec values were. He implicitly suggested that I was some kind of traitor to the nation.

And it worked.

I was very disappointed and frustrated by what I perceived and still perceive as a slick, dishonest and manipulative debating technique.

What does national identity have to do with the effect of globalization on third world countries?

Which leads me to the focus of my intervention today: what to do against emotional arguments when trying to persuade the public about the benefits of free market reforms.

I have come today to accept - even appreciate - the importance of emotional arguments. I realize that as human beings we are 80% emotion and 20% reason.

This means that advancing the cause of liberty needs more emotion than facts. And that we should be able to counter emotional arguments by other emotional arguments.

Yesterday, Mario Dumont, leader of the ADQ, was accused by André Boisclair of being "one of Quebec's oldest U.S. Republican politicians." This is just another manifestation of the same entrenched phenomenon that is currently impeding any healthy debate on real issues.

Today, anyone promoting free market reforms - such as limiting overregulation, lowering taxes or putting an end to state monopolies - is finger-pointed as being a supporter of American values. In Quebec, you can also be accused of endorsing "English" values, which is no better.

You just cannot be a "real Canadian" or a "real Quebecer" if you are opposed to statism and big government… What a fabrication !

It is a myth that interventionist policies constitute the very fabric of our national identity.

It is a reality that the so-called "Canadian identity" based on government compassion (meaning socialism) was invented only in the 1960s and 70s.

The National Post's William Watson has shown our true past in a book called Globalization and the Meaning of Canadian Life.

Until the 1960s, Canada had a quite limited government.

In many areas, it was more limited than in the U.S.

Over the last 100 years, the Americans led the way with interventionist policies, with Canadians following shortly after.

The United States created a central banking system in 1913. In Canada that didn't happen until 1935.

The Americans started collecting income tax in 1913. Canada didn't start doing so until 1917.

Sir John A. MacDonald's National Policy of imposing tariffs on imports was inspired by the Americans. Same thing with his government subsidies for railway construction.

Roosevelt started enacting his big government New Deal programs in 1933. In Canada, these kinds of reforms weren't initiated until several years later and did not go as far.

The Great Society programs of Lyndon Johnson began in the mid-1960s, which inspired Trudeau's Just Society here in the late 1960s.

There are even examples long before Confederation: the Lewis and Clark expedition. The Canadian West was explored by private interests, whereas the American government was subsidizing its westbound explorers. Going back as far as the 1770s, the North West Company and fur traders like Alexander Mackenzie were moving their way into the Canadian west. Meanwhile, in 1803, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (the famous "Lewis and Clark") received public money from the U.S. Congress, and their expedition was initiated at the request of President Thomas Jefferson.

Quebec itself had one of the least interventionist governments on the continent until the Quiet Revolution.

When Roosevelt launched his New Deal, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, the Quebec Liberal Premier at the time, called it, "a Socialistic venture bordering on Communism."

There is still a strong tradition in Quebec for individual liberty, personal responsibility, and free enterprise.

Indeed, polling data tells us the story.

A Léger Marketing poll from January 29, 2004 reported: 70% of Quebecers wanted the Charest government to keep its promise to cut taxes.

In a poll on June 1, 2004, 51% of Canadians - and 68% of Quebecers - would accept allowing citizens to buy private health services, so long as the public system were maintained.

A poll on Nov. 11, 2004, showed that almost half of Quebecers would support a flat tax.

On April 26, 2005, 52% of Canadians favoured allowing private care, with 65% of Quebecers approving of it.

Au Québec, la langue et la culture sont les vecteurs de l'identité collective. Dans le reste du Canada, ce sont davantage les programmes sociaux et le système public de santé qui définissent l'identité nationale et différencient les Canadiens anglais des Américains.

Cette dynamique recèle une occasion pour nous au Québec, que nous devrions utiliser comme levier pour promouvoir les réformes dont nous avons besoin pour mettre le cap sur la prospérité.

Les idées, les concepts et les valeurs qui sous-tendent l'économie de libre marché font partie de l'héritage culturel du Québec, de notre fibre nationaliste. C'est quelque chose dont nous devrions être fiers et vis-à-vis de laquelle nous devrions nous « reconnecter » culturellement.

Ce serait faux de penser que l'histoire du Québec et du Canada est une longue suite d'interventions étatiques.

C'est l'initiative privée et la liberté individuelle qui ont bâti ce pays, et, à bien des égards, même davantage qu'aux États-Unis!

Pensez aux coureurs des bois qui allaient acheter aux Amérindiens des pelleteries pour l'Europe.

Ou à Radisson et des Groseilliers qui, devant les restrictions imposées au commerce en Nouvelle-France, se sont alliés à des marchands anglais et ont été à l'origine de la Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson.

Certaines élites essaient de nous faire croire que nos traditions sont plus étatistes que celles des Américains. Or, si cela est vrai, ce ne l'est que depuis les années 1960.

Auparavant, nos gouvernements étaient moins portés à intervenir. Ils finissaient toutefois par suivre les modes américaines, avec quelques années de décalage.

It's about time that we start to explain that you can be a true Canadian and a true Quebecer while wanting to reduce government control over our lives!

Only by promoting classical liberal ideas will a critical mass of Quebecers endorse our policy prescriptions.

Few will be persuaded to embrace classical liberalism just on tax cuts or deregulation. The fight over the future will also be about cultural and ethical arguments.

We need to wage an ongoing battle of ideas. To do so, we need to assume our true identity as free marketers, our emotions as liberty seekers and our nationality and history as freedom builders.

I have come to realize the importance of re-establishing in the eyes of Quebecers their true history as entrepreneurs and the independent spirit that was once at the core of their culture.

The only way to counter the myth of socialist values as Quebec values is to say that it's completely false, that these values are more American than Canadian or originating from Quebec.

Nous, les Québécois, partageons une plus grande sensibilité que les autres Canadiens aux valeurs qui sous-tendent l'économie de libre marché. Il suffit de se rappeler, par exemple, notre appui au libre-échange pour s'en convaincre.

During the last provincial elections, 62% of Quebecers voted for a "right-wing" party, either the PLQ or the ADQ.

Next time you hear anybody saying that private healthcare, less regulation or lower taxes are American solutions based on American values, stand up with energy and proudly assert that it's true to our traditions and history to seek more freedom.

Enjoying freedom is what being a true Quebecer and a true Canadian is all about.

As long as we are seen as traitors to the nation, we will not make any gains.

If the general public perceive those who defend free market ideas as people kneeling to the Americans, they are not going to buy my arguments in any way, shape or form.

Let's rediscover our traditions!

Let's rediscover our national pride about private initiatives and personal responsibilities!

Thank you.

Merci.