Quebec

The first time the Parti Québécois came to power promising to hold a referendum on sovereignty, in 1976, Quebec accounted for 27.2 per cent of Canada’s population. More than 100,000 anglophones left the province during the PQ’s first term in office alone. The exodus continued after the 1980 referendum that saw Quebeckers vote to stay in Canada.

By the time of the second referendum – in 1995, following the PQ’s return to power the previous year – Quebec’s share of the Canadian population had declined to 24.7 per cent. While fewer anglophones left the province in the wake of that plebiscite, lower immigration levels than in the rest of Canada meant that Quebec’s population grew much more slowly than the populations of Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia during the subsequent three decades.

The deeply unpopular premier of Quebec, François Legault, said on Wednesday that he would resign after seven years in power, acknowledging after months of desperate attempts to revive his standing in the polls that “Quebecers want change.”

The announcement — only weeks after Mr. Legault’s pledge to run for a third term — could upend the political dynamics in Canada’s French-speaking province ahead of a general election likely to be held next fall.

Mr. Legault said that he would step down after his party, Coalition Avenir Québec, a pro-business, center-right party, selects a new leader.

School boards, teachers and parents are furious with François Legault’s government for cutting $570 million from the province’s current year education budget.

Services to students, they argue, will inevitably suffer. The cutbacks having been announced without warning, the anger is understandable. However, Quebecers would do well to get used to such financial restrictions: the province’s fiscal situation is dire, and at this stage, there is no other choice but to slow the rise in expenditures, especially for the two largest parts of the budget by far, that is health care (44 per cent) and education (15 per cent).

Fifteen years ago, Maclean’s magazine ignited a firestorm with a cover story that branded Quebec as “the most corrupt province in Canada.” The cover featured Bonhomme Carnaval clutching a briefcase overflowing with cash.

Many Quebecers and politicians dismissed the article as an unfair attack on the province’s reputation. Yet we now have fresh evidence suggesting that Maclean’s might have been onto something all along.