Quebec law will bridge monarch’s demise
It’s strange to read that Queen Elizabeth’s death could have left Quebec in political and legal disarray, but the government has tabled a bill to tidy up some loose ends left by the René Lévesque administration in 1982.
Kevin 17:18 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
See my comment below about Levesque’s legislation being designed to be challenged.
Plamondon’s suggestion to remove the Lieutenant Governor is just as difficult as removing the Gov. General position or the Cdn. Senate.
Everyone proposing otherwise either knows it’s impossible and is just saying it to get you angry, or they have no idea how the laws that govern our country work.
Education systems across the country should devote much more time to laws and the constitution and the Charter.
Kate 18:45 on 2021-03-11 Permalink
I agree with you there, Kevin. Americans at least get civics classes. Nobody taught me in school about the constitution, the charter, basics like how the feds, the province and the city divide up authority. A lot of folks don’t know or care about a lot of these things, and if they don’t, how can they even vote intelligently?
Ephraim Dickstein 08:06 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
@Kate – No one taught you in school how to budget, how to calculate the price per serving, how to save money, how to invest money, etc. There are a lot of things that our education system doesn’t teach.
The civics should be part of the Quebec History / Canadian History course. When I did Canadian history, we had to read the BNA act. But then they brought in Quebec History and well, it skips so much in favour of so little. I’m sometimes surprised they haven’t replaced Eric the Red with Jacques Cartier. And they never seem to bring up the religious discrimination that was the basis of Quebec. Do you see a single mention of Esther Brandeau in Quebec’s text book?
GC 09:30 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
I remember covering a bit of the constitution in Canadian history. Things like separation of powers, residual powers, etc. Definitely not a full class, but at least we touched on it. This was Ontario in the nineties, however, and not everyone gets the exact same education.
It’s true, though, that basic skills like budgeting are overlooked. Our family studies–or whatever it was called–class covered things like sewing and cooking, but not that… I feel like you can get by better in life not knowing how to sew but having some clue how to manage your savings.
Kevin 10:36 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
My oldest child is in grade 10. Her history classes and textbooks, in multiple grades, have spent 70% of the curriculum on life in Quebec between 1500 and 1760, and 20% on 1760 to 1867.
She did have a class this year or last with the rather silly name of Consumer Sciences that discussed all those household things, but it was a touch abstract.
Kate 11:38 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
Kevin, I think it has to be abstract. With classes on the practicalities of life, if you get more specific, sooner or later you’re going to impinge on areas some people feel should be taught by the parents, not by the school.
Ephraim 12:10 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
It’s sometimes as simple as mathematics… Basmati Rice Cups are $2.50 for 4. Each is a serving of 125g of prepared rice. How much would the raw rice needed to prepare one serving be, if raw Basmati rice was $7 for 3.62kg. Where 40g of raw rice makes 100g of prepared rice. And how much would you save per serving.
So that’s 50g of raw rice to make 125g of prepared rice and 9.66c of rice per serving versus 62.5c per serving of prepared rice. Saving 52.84c per serving.
The same goes for something like Laundry Detergent. They are sold in containers of 96, 48 and 24 loads with a price of $19, 13 and $7 respectively, calculate the cost per load. You are offered a bucket of laundry detergent delivered from a warehouse store for $90 that offers 1100 loads. Which should you buy? (BTW… I use the bucket at just 8.1c per load.)
And how about calculating how much you need to save for retirement? Most schools don’t teach that, but yet if you start doing it with the first year of your first job, you will save more in the first 10 years than you can ever catch up with later in life. When I taught, I also had students calculate the cost of a pack a day cigarette habit and a high street coffee per day too. It’s stuff people really need to know.
Kate 12:16 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
Ephraim, you make a good point about buying in bulk, but don’t forget, three big factors influence this:
– having the money up front for the larger purchase
– having the means to transport larger quantities
– having room to store things – especially food – safely.
Not everyone has all three. I’ve come up against these limits myself over the last year, not wanting to keep popping out to shop, but hauling 20 lb. bags of things like rice or cat kibble gets pretty old on foot or by bus.
CE 12:24 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
I didn’t have any classes growing up that taught me how to budget or spend my money intelligently but I had Street Cents on the CBC every Monday afternoon which taught me a lot of the stuff we’re talking about here. It’s too bad my generation had to rely on a TV show to teach us such basic and important aspects of living in the modern world.
David Senik 14:08 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
I LOVED Street Cents as a kid, though I watched on Saturday mornings.
Ephraim 17:40 on 2021-03-12 Permalink
Kate – That’s a different concern. The point is that people have to learn HOW to do that and WHY, it’s a choice and choices need a reasoning. I’m going to the be the last person to tell you not to go to Tim Horton’s or Thai Express, my retirement depends on it. But it’s not just food… do you put away $5000 in cash in an account that get 0.5% interest per year or do you buy bank stocks that have a 4% dividend. How would that look at retirement? Do you pay off your credit card or run up the debt? What does the effect of 19.99% interest look like? How much does that jacket cost? Seriously, so many people don’t understand this…. I had a friend who was convinced by a car salesman that it was cheaper to own a new car than to simply buy out the car at the end of the lease and drive it until death! I had to go through the numbers with her and show her the savings.