In 2017 Valérie Plante ran for mayor of Montreal on a platform centered on one flagship promise. A new pink metro line. 21 kilometers of new subway infrastructure connecting the northeast of the city to downtown. The ligne rose. The project
In 2021 Quebec announced a mandate. All new school buses purchased in the province must be zero-emission. The subsidy program attached to this mandate required that buses be assembled in Canada. One Quebec-based company was positioned to be
Let me tell you what actually crushes a school bus driver in Montreal. Not the children. Children are children. They make noise. They move around. They have energy that adults have forgotten how to access. Managing a bus full of children is
The official narrative of Quebec’s language legislation is well established. French is under threat. The anglophone continent surrounding the province poses an existential risk to the culture and identity of six million francophones. The Of
In 2013 Uber arrived in Quebec and began operating without respecting provincial regulations. Taxi drivers had paid up to $200,000 each for permits that the Quebec government had deliberately limited in number. The scarcity of those permits
Quebec sells itself on culture. The French language. The poutine. The joual accent. The St-Jean-Baptiste parade. The specific character of Montreal that makes it unlike any other city in North America. What Quebec does not put in the touris
Quebec’s emergency rooms are operating at 139 to 174 percent capacity. A man over 70 waited 16 hours without seeing a doctor, went home, and died. Nurses are leaving the public system in large numbers. The province faces one of the most sig
Quebec has a nursing shortage. This is documented, publicly acknowledged, and has been described as a crisis by healthcare administrators, unions, and physicians for several years. What is less publicly discussed is the specific relationshi
Quebec spends more on healthcare per capita than most Canadian provinces. The system is publicly funded. Access is universal. The political narrative is that Quebec’s healthcare is a point of provincial pride. A social achievement worth pro
Quebec has the highest provincial income tax rates in Canada. Combined with federal taxes Quebec residents face some of the highest personal income tax burdens in North America. The Quebec government collects those taxes with the explicit j