MONTREAL – What’s Quebecois for “ennui”? Students in la belle province are not feeling great about Canada’s economic prospects, or their own: More than a third expects their communities’ economies to get worse, not better.
According to an online survey of 4,425 high school students from Civix, a charity that promotes civic engagement with young people, they’re outliers in many respects – less likely to think lowering taxes will spark growth, least likely to cite human rights records as most important when negotiating a trade deal, least likely (at 45 per cent) to support lower corporate tax rates.
And, perhaps surprisingly, high-schoolers who witnessed last year’s so-called Maple Spring – in which students protesting tuition hikes clashed with police in sometimes violent demonstrations across the province – were less likely than other provinces to advocate for more funding towards education and lowering tuition: Only nine per cent mentioned it as a priority for Finance Minster Jim Flaherty.
They’re also less likely to think transferring money to provinces for post-secondary education will foster innovation (lowest of all provinces at 16 per cent) and least likely – at 34 per cent – to think education spending should be increased.
Of all Canadian students surveyed, Quebec students are least likely to say the government should support the fossil fuels industry and least likely to think the oilsands benefit all Canadians. They are most in favour (34 per cent) of decreasing funding to the CBC.
Click here for an infographic that breaks down the findings of the survey.
“I suspect there are two things at play,” says Peter Loewen, a politics professor at the University of Toronto.
“The first is that Quebecers are more likely to believe, in general, that the federal government is failing them. Second, all of Quebec society has been witness to a now year-long political conflagration over tuition fees. Couple this with a highly-publicized investigation into widespread corruption, it’s unsurprising that Quebecers are more sceptical about government.”
On the other hand, Quebecois respondents were also most likely to favour quashing foreign takeovers of Canadian companies if the foreign corporation is government-owned.
It may come as no surprise, amid revelations about a crumbling Champlain Bridge and during a protracted government inquiry in corruption in the construction industry, that Quebec teens are most likely to ask for more federal funding for infrastructure.
The overall sense of dissatisfaction could be due in large part to regional turmoil – a provincial election that gave the separatist Parti Quebecois a minority government for the first time ever amid unfolding revelations around corruption of public officials.
But it could also be that these students are just more aware of what’s going on, says Carleton University’s Jon Pammett.
“In Quebec, there has always been more of a correspondence between Quebec issues and issues that might be affecting the whole country,” he said.
“I’m not surprised that Quebec young people and Quebec older people are a bit out of step, certainly with the direction of the current government. They’re maybe a bit more engaged with what government in general is doing.”
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