李唐

Legault is right about productivity

What are we going to do about it? Symptoms of a slack attitude toward work are everywhere as many enjoy la belle vie

By Henry Aubin, Montreal Gazette August 15, 2012

François Legault, leader of Coalition Avenir Québec, has dared to break an unwritten commandment for politicians: “Thou shalt shower the public with flattery, especially at election time.” He said this week that young Quebecers generally favour the good life — “la belle vie” — at the expense of a serious approach to studies and work. They should draw inspiration, he suggested, from the more productive Asians.

Sure enough, a firestorm of indignation has followed. A Le Devoir editorialist rebuked Legault for being “obsessed with productivity.” The head of the FEUQ, one of the groups behind the student boycott, slammed him for spreading “offensive prejudices.” Huffed the head of its ally, the FECQ: “What a lack of respect.”

For their part, Liberal leader Jean Charest and Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois both observed the commandment to perfection. “Quebecers are a hardworking people,” he stroked. Quebec youth everywhere, she fawned, “shine with talent and intelligence.”

Never mind that 17 per cent of 19-year-old Quebecers have no high-school diploma, which makes for the highest dropout rate in Canada. Never mind that 32 per cent of university students fail to graduate.

Let’s look closer at Legault’s various remarks.
 
“We need to understand that if we want to keep our present social programs we’ll have to improve our productivity,” he said. Quebec children of Asian background tend to excel in school because their parents encourage them to study, he noted. He added that it’s much the same among students in Quebec’s Jewish schools, where the dropout rate is minuscule. His message: Quebec’s standard of living will fall if the population as a whole doesn’t become more productive.

The truth hurts.

To be sure, Legault’s generalization is, like all generalizations, oversimplified. Let’s stress that many Quebecers are high performers. (To wit, the Société de transport de Montréal’s workforce came out No. 1 for productivity in a study of 26 transport systems around the world by experts from Britain’s Imperial College. The STM’s buses cost less than average to operate per kilometre and equipment failure caused fewer delays on the métro than in most subway systems.)

But, yes, the dismal fact is that the Quebec workforce’s overall productivity is mediocre by Canadian standards, and Canadian standards are themselves mediocre when stacked up against those of the world’s main industrialized economies.

What Legault is saying is not much different from what that apolitical think-tank, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is saying: High productivity translates into a high standard of living, and if Canada wants to maintain a high living standard its workforce will need to knuckle down. This is especially true as regards Quebec, whose aging workforce will retire in great numbers in the next few years; projections suggest the number of births and immigrants will be too few to replace the retirees.

This year’s student boycott understandably helped provoke Legault’s remarks. A mass refusal to study (as a protest against shouldering North America’s lightest tuition fees) hardly testifies to an eager work ethic.

Legault made sure to stress the responsibility of older generations in shaping the attitudes of youth: It’s up to parents, he said to transmit a work ethic to their kids. Yet it’s hard for many parents to do that when they themselves lack a strong work ethic.

You can see symptoms of this slack approach to work in many places. Provincial public-administration workers are absent from work an average of more than 12 — count ’em, 12 — days a year. The proportion of persons aged 55 to 64 who are working or looking for work is far below the Canadian average. (A Journal de Montréal columnist, Michel Hébert, cracks, “Here, retirement is a career plan.”)

But the ultimate symptom of societal laxity has to be Quebec’s public sector debt, proportionately by far the highest of any province. Despite recent government vows to rein it in, public spending keeps increasing: The government reported on Friday that the deficit for the first two months (April and May) of this fiscal year rose by $1.4 billion, more than six times the increase for the corresponding period last year.

The message: “Whoopee, let the good times roll! And forget about the bill — our descendants can deal with that.”

It’s not clear if a Premier Legault would have the will to bring a stop to this mindset. His party program says his government would “prioritize the repayment of debt without excluding measures to reduce personal income taxes.” That’s a nebulous commitment. Slashing the debt would be even harder to achieve if, as the program also says, middle-class families would see their other sorts of taxes (including the health tax and school tax) decline by $1,000 per year.

Legault’s impromptu remarks while campaigning may have warned of the pitfalls of embracing la belle vie. Fine. We as a society can use a kick in the pants. But there’s little in his stated plans to give force to that rhetoric.
 
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Froncois Legault may be right about Asia

Beijing — François Legault has dragged Asia into the Quebec election campaign.

Good for him.

On Tuesday, the leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec said all Quebec parents should follow the lead of their immigrant counterparts and do more to entrench the value of education in their children.

He may have a point. His son’s belief that Asian students have no life, however — cited by Legault in making his comments — warrants more inspection. The Western stereotype of Asian students is well-known: they study too much, are awkward at parties and, naturally, have no lives. Part of the stereotype isn’t a stereotype at all. We know Asians spend more time studying than their non-Asian counterparts. But no lives? One trip to the Asia-Pacific region should put that misconception to rest. Asian cities are far more bustling and dynamic than our own. Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and Taipei are non-stop, and make our Canadian cities — including our beloved Montreal — look sleepy. The nightlife is ’round-the-clock and the streets are teeming with things to do. Students in primary and secondary schools have a gruelling study schedule that includes not merely textbooks and homework but extra-curriculars like sports, dance and learning a musical instrument. Students from Asia are a lot more well-rounded than we think. Just because you don’t see Asian students at your party or at the bar you frequent doesn’t mean they’re spending every waking moment at the library. The stereotype arises from a lack of interaction between Canadians and students from Asia. Cultural differences and the inability of both sides to overcome them are the reasons why we often see Chinese students “sticking together,” or Koreans and Chinese mixing together through the use of English. (The expat community in Asia is no different, with plenty of Canadians closing themselves off in an anglocentric bubble.) We witnessed the stereotype of the rote-learning, personality-lacking Asian during the London Olympics. Early on, when China was a force to reckon with in the medal standings, the Chinese were called “medal machines.” The U.S. in the end finished atop the standings by far, having won the highest number of medals overall, including the most gold. Nobody’s calling the Americans machines. What does it mean to have a life anyway? Is it getting smashed until three in the morning, sleeping in until noon and nursing a hangover the rest of the day? The partying Westerner is a stereotype rampant on this side of the Pacific. According to folks here we’re lazy, which explains our poor work ethic; we’re not the brightest, which explains our crumbling infrastructure; we have no vision, which explains our imploding economies; not to mention that we’re promiscuous and riddled with all kinds of frightening STDs. Maybe they’re wrong. Maybe not. One thing’s certain: we can learn from Asia. The value placed on education in the Confucian circle — Hong Kong, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Singapore — and a willingness to engage the international community explain the region’s dramatic economic success. François Legault is someone who clearly understands that Quebec is in a state of collapse. The former CEO of Air Transat seems to have a global vision. He wants to bring Quebec to the world and the world to Quebec. The CAQ may just be the wake-up call the province so desperately needs. Elvis Anberis a Montreal freelance writer who has lived, worked and studied in the Asia-Pacific region for more than three years. He is currently travelling through China.