Let’s start with a bit of name dropping, or “name dropping” as my translator suggests. With a headline because I still needed attention. An ex-politician like me can experience small crises, phases of not being public.
Posted at 6:00 am
I will adjust my dosage.
Yes, I had dinner with Joe Biden in Ottawa last Friday. But hey, it wasn’t exactly a tete-a-tete, we were a couple, let’s say about 300. Almost intimate.
I am telling you about this because I decided to take the train there to find out because I had never passed Montreal by rail.
Quebec hasn’t become Blanc-Sablon or Nairobi, but things get complicated for air transport within the country, with often rocking flight schedules, at disproportionate prices and sometimes detours via Yellowknife or almost.
Classified as a luxury good for the average person.
The Train: The Milkman’s Round. More than 11 hours total, round trip. A dozen stations, while customers virtually only board in Quebec, Montreal and Ottawa. But impeccable staff.
Yes, there is the bus, I know…
In order not to get on my nerves, I refused to check how long it would have taken me with a TGV.
We’re there with the Air Canada monopoly, which knows how to kill competition, and because we haven’t yet decided to prioritize high-speed rail. In addition to the whims of people who believe that the liberal economy naturally creates competition and gets the job done on mobility.
Try going to Gaspésie or anywhere else on the outskirts of Quebec and you’ll bring me news. Despair.
In the regions, ask a specialist doctor from Montreal or Quebec to help you and try to organize air transport for him, maximizing his time.
Mission almost impossible.
He will lose the desire to help you and dissolve into absentee subscribers. And here we are talking about people’s health, not a vacation to the Magdalen Islands or a salmon fishing trip on the Cascapédia.
There I will take part in two events in the coming weeks: in Grande-Vallée and in Carleton-sur-Mer.
In Grande-Vallée, an event that takes place on a Sunday. My only valid option is to leave Quebec on Friday morning and leave Gaspé at the end of the day on Monday. So four days for a day’s work.
Luckily her guest is retired and we’ll be in lobster season with a bottle or two of white wine to forget…
Exactly the same route for Carleton. But at least it’s a two or three day symposium. But I’m completely losing my Monday day. Luckily for me, time is less money than it used to be, otherwise I would have had enough of it!
And I am also told there that flights are often canceled without anyone knowing why. misery !
Of course you can still drive, but we’re talking about a nasty trot! Two day round trip. What good does it do for us despite the effort?
Try to attract an investor, a doctor, a teacher, young academics, a young family, workers in general to your area if mobility is insufficient.
You’re up to your ears in slush.
I repeat that on the first pages of the great summary of economics it is certainly written that one of the foundations of economic development is the ability to transport goods and people.
Anyone interested in regional economic development? Are we kidding or what?
And the Thing program that gives discounts on plane tickets? It doesn’t work!
Like the presence of friendly small airlines that the government wants to see grow. It won’t be before tomorrow if it ever happens…
Of course, if it wasn’t spring I could have considered a snowmobile rally to get to the peninsula, but it fell flat.
I have a penchant for heresy. But for there to be heresy there must be dogma.
This dogma is once again to believe that the system of free competition succeeds in everything as if by magic.
And the heresy: Quebec once had a public airline called Quebecair. Yes, it was in deficit, but regional Quebec felt like living in a normal, functioning country.
Economics is not just an accounting science. It is also and above all a question of vision. How much would we be willing to invest in mobility in the regions so that they develop normally and increase state tax revenue on the train?
What role does the state ultimately play?
What can kill a region if not a lack of people because it is difficult to be treated, to study, to move?
Of course, we can direct all investments to Bécancour, Montreal or Quebec. But what do we do with the rest of the territory?
OK, enough!
After all, President Biden looked good and Justin was beaming.
That’s right, he’s not getting any younger, the Prez. We have the impression that it’s a bit wobbly and hope that the cognitive will hold out for another five or six years.
But the guy is exceedingly friendly and comforting. The neighbor you want.
Over dessert, an image came to mind: Trump, in front of the cameras, a few years ago, refusing to shake hands with Angela Merkel…
Between us
Speaking of mobility and intelligent investment: I look forward to the results of the Third Link studies that GG and the Ministry of Transport will present to us in April.
I said a few years ago that the whole thing would cost nothing less than $10 billion.
I still firmly believe that, even if they will try to convince us otherwise.