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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Party plugs right-wing policies -- with a twist

By: Jonathan Montpetit

Posted: 08/11/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Francois Legault (CP)

MONTREAL -- If economic conservatives are looking for the great right-wing hope in Quebec's election campaign, they may have to shift their gaze a little to the left.

The Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ), headed by millionaire businessman Francois Legault, has billed itself the champion of small business and defender of the province's entrepreneurial spirit.

But in the party's platform, plans to slash taxes sit alongside a promise to prevent foreign takeovers. The benefits of risk-taking are vaunted, right next to a pledge a CAQ government will play a bigger role in protecting business.

For an ostensibly fiscally conservative party, its policies leave some economists wondering what it has against the free market. Even Premier Jean Charest took to calling Legault a spendthrift "left-winger" while campaigning Friday.

After reading through the CAQ's platform, Université Laval economist Stephen Gordon described it as "pork piled upon pork."

The CAQ has cast itself as the party of change in the Quebec election campaign. The early success in recruiting anti-corruption crusader Jacques Duchesneau has allowed it to steal the limelight from its more established counterparts.

But lost in the background are the party's economic proposals.

Some are indeed fiscally conservative. It would use 100 per cent of resource royalties to bring Quebec's debt down to the national average, eliminate 7,000 civil service jobs and cut personal income taxes and fees by $1.8 billion over five years.

It would also eliminate half the province's annual $4 billion in various tax credits for businesses and transfer those savings to a fund for creating high-paying jobs.

Legault says he wants to revive the entrepreneurial spirit in Quebec.

"We don't take chances anymore in Quebec," he said at a recent campaign stop. "To succeed in business, what's important is the batting average... There will always be failures, but if we are too afraid of failure, then we'll stop innovating in Quebec."

Warning to free-market economists: There's a catch.

When Legault speaks of a "batting average," the bat-swinger he's talking about is the state. What he's arguing is that the state shouldn't fear picking winners and losers.

And the entrepreneurial spirit Legault speaks of would be supported by the province's public pension fund.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 11, 2012 A20

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