Enlevons les «ombrages» du gouvernement

Il y a un contrat social entre les gouverneurs et les gouvernés. Nous le peuple acceptons d'abandonner une partie de nos libertés et de notre trésor en échange de prestation de services qui rendent nos vies meilleures. Des services que même le plus fort parmi nous ne pourrait pas se fournir à soi-même. Quand nous sommes sortis des jungles et des forêts et avons créé des habitats, nous nous sommes rendus compte qu’en repoussant les loups ensemble, nous aurions le time de vivre. Pour grandir. Pour aimer. Pour engager nos passions et nos poésies et réaliser la pleine capacité de notre individualité. 

Throughout history however, our governors too often turn out to be wolves in sheep’s clothing. Instead of getting the essentials right – the effective and efficient provision of services – they engage in social engineering with groaning bureaucracies that do nothing more than enhance their power and control over us. Public service is called just that because it is about service and services. Assuring the people of sufficient, accessible and affordable food, clothing, housing, teaching, healing, security, transport and freedom from want. It’s not welfare. It’s just decency. A helping hand up is not a hand out. But the institutions of social security – the highest and most noble promise of industrial liberalism – is a far cry from the statist dictates of today that so much of our taxes are wasted on. This statism seeks to change you. It goes beyond the bounds of any natural law and erodes the fundamental trust between the government and we the people. It also supports massive shadow government structures that squeezes the last cent out of our livelihoods. Structures which abnegated the sovereignty of our suffrage. Structures created in council rooms apart far from the public they are supposed to serve.

The recent provincial budget has egregious flaws. But this budget – for the first time in recent memory – also gave us a glimpse at the shadow structures whose never-ending and ever-growing funding needs seep our very lifeblood. Examining them, we can see how the state wastes our money. We can also understand what John Reed meant when he wrote that, “There comes a time in the relations between governors and governed when every  action by the state excites the people’s contempt and every failure to act sparks the people’s disgust.”

In dusty little corners of the budget we learned of “fusions or abolitions” of provincial government agencies. Agencies which in each and every case duplicated or triplicated the work of government ministries and pre-existing commissions or crown corporations. These shadow structures – shadow in the sense that they simply mirror the work of existing entities like a shadow reflects our form – seem to exist merely for the sake of expanding state control over our lives with larger bureaucracies, employing armies of inspectors, broadening ministerial powers and having convenient places to elevate political allies under the pretext of public service. In this budget we are told that 28 such shadows will be abolished or fused into ministries or pre-existing entities. Unfortunately, we are also informed that 172 will continue. And we are not told whether the regiments of bureaucrats soldiering them will be eliminated or simply transferred to continue receiving salaries paid by the public dole.

Ce n'est pas un petit geste. Voici le cœur de la façon dont le gouvernement gaspille notre argent au Québec. 28 de fait, il ne manque que 172. Mais quand? Et où? Ce n'est pas un petit geste parce que Bachand lui-même admet qu'au Québec nous payons 26% de plus pour des services publics qu'en Ontario, et l’Ontario a un PIB de 14% plus grand que le nôtre. Combien de temps il croit que les gens se laisseront traiter comme des vaches à lait pour financer les avantages politiques provinciaux. Ce n'est également pas un petit geste parce que quelques 40% de nos fonds public sont dépensés en soins de santé. Et le Québec est la seule juridiction politique occidentale où plus de la moitié des personnes gens payés par le système de santé sont du personnel non-médical. Ce sont des bureaucrates, plusieurs qui sont dans ces ombrages regardant au-dessus des épaules de nos guérisseurs. La juridiction politique la plus rapprochée en occident de notre 52% non-médical est la France. Et la France est seulement à 37%.

Let us take a brief glance at some of these “fusions and abolitions.” We have been a bit free in our translations of the names of these shadows. Our personal favorite involves transport. Now follow closely. The activities of the Fund for the sale of goods and services; the Fund for partnership in transport infrastructure; the Fund for contributions of drivers to communal transport and the Fund for the conservation and improvement of the transport network will be rolled into a new Fund for road infrastructures and communal transport!!! Four fund into one. Not a bad deal it seems. Except what in the name of sanity were the four Funds doing in the first place? We the taxpayers were funding these bureaucracies. We have a Mi nistry of Transport. Couldn’t these matters have been taken care of there?

There will also be a merger into one agency of the Fund for health research, the Fund for research on nature and technology and the Fund for research on society and culture. Are we the only ones asking – what in blazes? What do they have in common and why did they exist to begin with? The crown corporation on asbestos will be abolished. And we had one why? The Fund for the horse racing industry will be abolished. Again, why did we have one? What happened to the free market? And we thought the government did not want to encourage gambling. The Council on seniors will be integrated with the Secretariat on seniors which in turn is part of the Ministry for Seniors. Why three levels? Not to be forgotten, The Permanent Council on Youth will be integrated to the Secretariat on Youth which reports to the Minister responsible for Youth. Again, why three levels? Why weren’t all these areas handled by policy advisors to the respective Ministers? Just one more, the Council on the family and early childhood will be integrated into the Ministry for the family and seniors. And again…why wasn’t it there to begin with?

Notre utilisation moderne du terme « contrat social » provient des écritures du philosophe français Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Ses pensées ont inspiré la révolution française. Nous au Québec avons brûlé les bâtiments du Parlement en 1839. Alors que nous réfléchissons comment réparer notre contrat social aujourd'hui - tellement mal compromis par une malfaçon financière et budgétaire spectaculairement non-partisane - les leçons de l'histoire devraient être maintenues dans l'esprit de tous nos principaux acteurs politiques.