Quebec in a Global Light by Robert Calderisi

Author:Robert Calderisi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Others
Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Promoting the Right Kind of Growth

Government cost cutting by itself, however, cannot safeguard necessary programs. A more reliable course is to promote economic growth, which in turn should strengthen public revenues. But, like efficiency, growth is often frowned upon in progressive circles. This suspicion is sound if it focusses on economic activity that wastes natural resources, endangers precious flora and fauna, and pours greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. But switching off the engines of human enterprise and invention is not the way to protect the environment. Harnessing them to a better set of policies and rewarding ingenious solutions would be much more promising.

Just as international development economists have promoted “fair” growth that benefits the largest number of poor people in developing countries, the challenge for Quebec is to pursue “green” growth that will increase the total amount of public and private resources available to society without exacting irreversible costs. Expanding the range of products using recycled materials, pushing hard against the current limits of energy efficiency, and developing technologies for cutting CO2 emissions more effectively will all prove financially rewarding and foster growth that everyone can be proud of. In contrast, aiming at no growth or even negative growth would make social policy all the harder by forcing governments to decide who should get fewer public benefits (rather than more) and threatening the future of social programs that Quebeckers now take for granted.

How to achieve growth that is both “green” and “fair” is of course a matter of debate. (For a discussion of climate change, see the next chapter.) Like their counterparts everywhere, Quebec economists can be irreverent and radical. Why – asks one – doesn’t Quebec sell its hydropower directly to foreign markets rather than “cheaply” in the form of aluminum (90 per cent of the cost of which is electricity),23 as if the jobs created were insignificant or a government would shut down an important industry to test his theory. Another economist would “privatize” the government’s liquor agency (the SAQ) by selling it to the highest bidder, as if a private monopoly would function better than a state one.24 Such speculation is in the nature of the economist’s craft, questioning the obvious and sometimes caricaturing the present so as to push the boundaries of policy in a more sensible direction.

It could be argued that good public policy is even more important in a mature market economy like Quebec’s than in a less advanced one or even a “command” economy like Cuba’s and North Korea’s where governments make all the important decisions. That is because, in a rich country, good policy builds on market structures that are already directing resources to things that people value. Policy makers must also recognize their limitations, as most economies do not control all the forces shaping them.

Quebec used to produce 90 per cent of one of the world’s most useful industrial materials. Now, there is no market for it at all and no one misses it, except perhaps in the small town of Asbestos.

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