A clear-eyed vision of Quebec

The first: Québec is about to experience the most rapid demographic decline of all industrialized countries, with the exception of Japan. [...] This will become increasingly significant in the years ahead, to the point that real growth in Québec’s GDP will be cut in half in the next decade. [...] This will obviously have a dramatic impact on the government’s financial situation: first, the increase in health costs will pick up speed as the older segment of the population expands; then, the government’s revenues will grow more slowly as the number of taxpayers shrinks. [...] The demographic decline will be exacerbated and will accentuate the threat to the vitality of our cultural institutions. [...] Rejecting change Unfortunately, at the very moment when we should be radically changing the way they view ourselves and the world around us, the slightest change to the way government functions, a bold project, the most timid call to responsibility or the smallest change to our comfortable habits is met with an angry outcry and objections or, at best, indifference.