Wal-Mart (Jonquière) is right: investors have rights too

To any impartial observer, it is not difficult to notice that 1. there are a lot of social agitators in Quebec; 2. they all support communist dictator Castro or anybody who is anti-american. Anything against the US is cheered by union leaders, the medias and even liberal cabinet members. They have a lot of friends within political parties, from the Parti québécois, the Bloc québécois, the NDP, liberals, and even some Red tories.

Today, union leaders said that Wal-Mart has no right to stop its business at Jonquière, Québec. The leader of the opposition party (Parti québécois), Bernard Landry, declared that Wal-Mart must obey the laws of Quebec and asked Quebecers to boycott Wal-Mart stores. Prime minister Jean Charest (Liberal party of Quebec) also said that Wal-Mart must follow the laws and asked for compulsory arbitration even if the company decided for closure.

Is there a communist agenda in Quebec ?

No need to have a strong and well organized communist party to destroy an economy. We must not judge people by looking only at what they wear. To answer «no» to the above question would be to misunderstand marxism and underestimate the extent to which marxist theories have spread -- whether consciously or not -- in Quebec society, through the public school system, to universities, from most medias. Most use currently the Newspeak marxian language. Most have been conditioned to look at the State as the answer to all their problems.

Having heard and read the reactions after the closure announcement, it is clear to me that most commentators here, from union leaders to the medias, did not care that much about the employees and people willing to work, but rather about their will to dictate their rules to an investor whom some called a «corporate bum». Union leaders (or union bums) would like for instance to judge if a compagny makes a fair profit. Making a profit in Quebec is seen as «bad». This is the applied marxist theory of surplus value. I heard also today that Quebec must be a leader to unionize Wall-Mart, so as to give a good lesson to all others.

Why not a general lockout in support of Wal-Mart ?

Of course, Wal-Mart will not be ruined by the closure of one store. Small businesses don't have that flexibility and they are more sensitive to the negative impact of government policies. It's also easier for large corporations to invest elsewhere. True, as union leaders said today, «Quebecers are not Chinese», but they should not complain if more products are coming from China. Jonquière lies in an area with a high unemployment rate, where large corporations have big unions and this is detrimental to small businesses.

No, it would be a fantasy to expect a general lockout by the private sector in support of Wal-Mart. In Quebec, the apparatchiks of most large corporations go hand in hand with politicians and union leaders. Their long term perspective does not go much farther than that of government lobbyists. They are not entrepreneurs. They are just bureaucrats on the payroll of large corporations and often graduated from our socialist think tanks in Quebec and Montreal (in industrial relations departments, for instance).

Not so for Wall-Mart. That company is one of the few large corporations being run by entrepreneurs.

A not so unrealistic communist scenario

As they say in movies: «Any resemblance with real persons or places is pure coincidence».
1. To become the North Korea of North America (albeit without a big army and nuclear weapons), first, have a strong state sector (or «public» sector, in Newspeak) to regulate and provide as much «free» services and transfer payments as possible. Take from the cows (taxpayers) as much milk (taxes) as they can give, not less.
2. Obviously, all government employees and state outfits are unionized. The government has to show the road to follow...
3. Discourage entrepreneurship by regulations and red tape in all fields, from taxation to environmental issues.
4. The result will be higher unemployment, which would then justify increased government intervention to fight... poverty, such as increased transfer payments to families (or what is left of them!), fiscal incentives, grants (the Quebec government, this week, was happy to announce an incentive package to attract a French PC games manufacturer whose average wage is 50 000$; Wal-Mart did not ask or get any grants to invest in Jonquière).
5. At point 5, we must go back to square 1, until the private sector is totally exhausted, choking, breathless. With no private sector to live on, the government sector's fate is written on the... wall.
Quebec has arrived to a point where there must be radical medicine to cure the patient. Unless:

Unless steps are taken soon for Quebec's reconstruction

One of the first steps to avoid economic and social disaster is to introduce freedom of association. Employees should be free to join or not to join a union (or any other professional monopoly) and to pay or not to pay its fees. Moreover, being a member of an association should not be a prerequisite for employment. Government should end and make illegal quotas (limiting entry) established in many trades, including of course construction.

There are a lot of people eager to work and who don't because of government regulations. The Jonquière Wal-Mart store is just one example. The real cause of the closure is not Wal-Mart's management, it is the Quebec government.

---February 11, 2005

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La «grande journée nationale de perturbation» du 11 décembre

Est-ce réellement pour la population et les travailleurs qu'ils ont manifesté les 10, 11 et 12 décembre (les manifestations peuvent se poursuivre jusqu'à l'ajournement de la présente session parlementaire), ou pour protéger leurs intérêts de profiteurs de l'État? Voici ma réponse à la «grande journée nationale de perturbation» (de dépravation?) tenue le 11:

1. Il nous faut une «grande journée nationale de libération».

2. Cette soi-disant manifestation ressemble à une grève illégale. Des employés syndiqués ont laissé leur travail. Des gardiennes dans les CPE ont pris 40 000 enfants en otages, à la demande, disent-ils, des parents dont certains, il est vrai, veulent tout avoir et ne rien payer (ces services de garde étatisés sont un nouveau palier de prise en charge des enfants qui n'a pas de justification en tant que service étatisé). S'agit-il d'une journée payée par l'employeur qui est, sauf exceptions, l'État? Ce serait absolument scandaleux que les payeurs de taxes paient pour une journée de manifestations.

3. Le gouvernement s'est montré très conciliant. Il a même fait preuve de mollesse et laissé planer de l'incertitude sur ses intentions. Ceci contraste avec la confiscation d'armes de chasse, sans même porter d'accusation, pour n'avoir pas les papiers requis par le grand frère à Ottawa, le parti libéral fédéral. Qu'est-ce que la police me ferait à moi si, pour bloquer une route, j'y déversais un camion rempli de sable?
Il y a matière à des poursuites sinon à un recours collectif pour les pertes encourues et causées par les manifestants. Parmi les pertes, il y a celles dues au blocage des routes, des ports de Québec et de Montréal. Le ministre de la sécurité dite publique s'est contenté de demander aux manifestants de cesser de bloquer les routes, sans faire quoi que ce soit.

4. Le gouvernement propose de modifier le Code du travail. L'assouplissement de la sous-traitance favorise la liberté d'entreprise. Ce qui manque au projet, c'est l'essentiel, c'est-à-dire une véritable libération du travail. Dans ce domaine le gouvernement va plutôt en sens contraire, c'est-à-dire qu'il veut imposer un ordre professionnel aux enseignants et, par la loi 30, fusionne contre leur gré des unités syndicales dans le secteur de la santé.
   --présentement, la liberté d'association, dans une entreprise, n'est que la liberté de se syndiquer et tous doivent obligatoirement joindre les rangs du syndicat. La liberté d'association doit comprendre la liberté de ne pas joindre un syndicat, une association de métiers (électriciens, plombiers par exemple), ou un ordre professionnel, et par le fait même la liberté de ne pas payer leurs cotisations. L'exercice d'un métier ou d'une profession ne devrait pas être assujetti à l'adhésion à une association qui contrôle l'offre de main-d'œuvre dans son champ d'activité. C'est à l'employeur de juger de la compétence.
   --la déduction à la source des cotisations ne devrait plus être obligatoire.
   --Aux fins de l'impôt, les syndicats et associations de métiers, professionnelles ou patronales ne devraient plus être traités comme des organismes sans but lucratif, leur but étant, effectivement, lucratif.
---12 décembre 2003

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