I'm a Canaussie, the first half of my life spent in Canada, the second up till now in Australia. I agree with the banana republic assessment, in many ways Quebec is going backwards while the rest of Canada opts to be part of the 21st century. I last visited Montreal about 6 years ago and was stunned to see that all the street signs, the ones I saw downtown, were now entirely in French, whereas they used to be both French and English. A very stupid move because obviously most of their tourism comes from non-French speaking neighbours like the rest of Canada and the USA. They also have had ongoing conflict with the powerful Cree Indian nation, who have claims on land in Quebec that is about the size of France. In 1995 when the Quebec government ran a referendum to secede from Canada, the Crees mobilised and their logic was that if the European/French speaking Quebecois had the right to leave Canada, they as a First Nation had the right to vote to stay. (The referendum failed). And a lot of the hydroelectric projects that power Quebec are situated on Cree land - a total nightmare for the proposed independent country of Quebec, who would sit in the dark while the Crees controlled the electricity. So there are forces at work that are, best case scenario, going to delay the James Bay project, worst case scenario might stop it. Just my opinion and I'm hoping that the Cree nation sees benefits that will get them behind the project.
AKE Price at posting:
$13.65 Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
