L'Illusion tranquille

[August1991]

I'm putting this in the federal category because I think this documentary will soon attract attention in English Canada. I saw it this morning in a cinema in Montreal and it was a full house for the 11 h 45 showing.

L'Illusion tranquille is a curious documentary that interviews several journalists, economists and also shows a group of articulate young people all talking about the so-called "Quebec Model" and how it is an illusion. IOW, they question many of the "received truths" (or the conventional wisdom) of Quebec society.

The film points out that Quebec is 56th in per capita income of the 60 provinces/states in the US and Canada. It explains that the so-called universality of Quebec's social programmes (day care and low tuition fees) are in fact subsidies to the rich and don't help the poor. The film is particularly scathing in its treatment of the power of unions in Quebec. It argues that Quebec unions have become the new clergy.

The film's title is a play on the Quiet Revolution (revolution tranquille) of the 1960s. The film makes the explicit point that Quebec simply replaced one form of tyranny (the Catholic Church) with another (social elites including union leaders).

The film was made on a very small budget with no government subsidies at all. This in itself is an interesting point. The film was made with a "high quality" digital camera, much like "My Date With Drew Barrymore" for example. I wouldn't be surprised to see more movies of this sort in the future.

It is interspersed with humourous graphics that make you laugh by their foolishness. In short, the movie is entertaining.

I haven't been able to find any reviews in English but there are many in French. Of course, the reactions are controversial as this thread shows.

Here's another review which is objective:

Remettre en question le modèle québécois. Voilà un sujet qui ne fait pas l'affaire de tous et qui a donné beaucoup de fil à retordre à Joanne Marcotte pour la réalisation de son documentaire-choc L'Illusion tranquille.

Le documentaire que Joanne Marcotte a réalisé ébranle certaines idées bien établies au Québec, comme l'universalité des programmes sociaux et l'utilité des syndicats.

Canoe

----

If I have a criticism, I found the film entirely missed one important aspect of Quebec society: Quebec exists within a federal state. The Quebec government receives equalization payments as well as payments through the federal health funds. Quebec also has a special agreement concerning federal income taxes. The word "equalization" is not mentioned once during the film.

I also was less than impressed with the discussion about government debt and intergenerational transfers. I expected a more sophisticated discussion.

From the perspective of people outside Quebec, it is worth pointing out that this documentary was made by a wife and husband team from Quebec City. They are members (not active militants) of the ADQ, but this point alone means that the film will be suspect in the eyes of Montreal's francophone elite.

At the same time however, the film is fascinating because it is so Québécois. The accents, style of speech and intonation go right to the heart. The film is remarkably simple, frank and direct. As one person said, it is like a coup de poing.

No doubt Stephen Harper will ask for a screening, if he hasn't already.

[mikedavid00]

At the same time however, the film is fascinating because it is so Québécois. The accents, style of speech and intonation go right to the heart. The film is remarkably simple, frank and direct. As one person said, it is like a coup de poing.

I wish I could see this film.

[August1991]

Michel Auger is kind of the Paul Wells of Quebec. Here's what Auger had to say in his blog about this film:

On a décrit le documentaire «L’Illusion tranquille» – qui vient de reprendre l’affiche – comme un film-choc à la manière de Michael Moore. Mais un Moore de droite qui ne se gênerait pas pour dénoncer les travers du «modèle québécois». On n’aurait jamais cru si bien dire.

C’est bel et bien dans la lignée de Michael Moore : un manque de rigueur et une complaisance qui vire à la caricature et qui ne satisfera que ceux qui sont déjà acquis à la cause.

La thèse est ultra-connue. La Révolution tranquille aurait replacé l’Église catholique par une élite nationalo-syndicaliste qui maintient le Québec dans la Grande Noirceur d’une pensée unique sociale-démocrate.

...

Puis on en arrive à la conclusion : tout ce qui val mal au Québec provient de l’alliance diabolique entre les centrales syndicales et le Parti québécois. Mais, partout au monde, les syndicats s’allient avec des partis politiques. Avec les démocrates aux États-Unis, avec le Labour en Grande-Bretagne, avec les socialistes partout en Europe et avec le NPD dans le reste du Canada.

Alors, il est où le «modèle québécois»?

Auger

Where is the Quebec model? Quebec has done nothing different from other jurisdictions in North America?

Such is the reaction in Quebec to this simple documentary. There is no middle ground.

I'm astonished that I have yet to see any comment in English Canada (outside of a Montreal Gazette negative review) about this film. We live in two solitudes and as a country, we now unfortunately have a bureaucracy/elite with an ideological agenda to supposedly unite us.

[tml12]

Quebec has a $120 billion dollar debt, a high abortion rate, a declining population, and an inability to cut services or increase privatization because of its unions.

Bouchard has said more or less when he came out with his model for Quebec's future last year.

[Charles Anthony]

I just heard a radio interview where the union leader confirms that they knew before the vote that the plant would have to close.

Quebec plant closes down after employees' 'no'

A pork plant south of Quebec City, Canada, will close down after employees voted against concessions to save their jobs.

Olymel, the plant's owner, will now follow through on warnings that it will close the money-losing facility.

The 862 workers present at an union meeting voted 97% against wage and benefit concessions to keep their jobs at the plant. Altogether the plant employs 1,100 people.

Incomprehensible

Lucien Bouchard, the province's former prime minister, who is acting as the company's negotiator, described the workers' decision as 'incomprehensible,' as the plant had lost US $42 million in three years.

Pig Progress

People have to get out of the stone-age before their lemming-like devotion to unions takes them all down in flames.

[geoffrey]

The sad part isn't that they are all out of jobs, it serves them right for their ignorance.

The sad part is that you and I will be paying their welfare.

[theloniusfleabag]

Dear Charles Anthony,

People have to get out of the stone-age before their lemming-like devotion to unions takes them all down in flames.

Though I am 'leftist', I also beleive that the 'union' is more detrimental than beneficial nowdays. It had it's time and place, but should have disappeared about the same time that the baseball bat was outlawed as a negotiation tool. Now it is both harmful to employees and employers. Labour and employment standards, safety monitoring, etc, have covered most of what workers truly need for protection. Businesses should be allowed to decide whether or not to use union labour.

[Charles Anthony]

Geo,

The sad story is even more pathetic when you consider these employees would still have been receiving some of the top pay in the North America market for their field.

Thel,

Businesses should be allowed to decide whether or not to Laborers should also be allowed to decide whether or not to use unions without being victims of violence.

By the way, I do not consider you a "leftist" at all. I see you as a rat trying to survive a race and finish as best as he can.

[geoffrey]

Geo,

The sad story is even more pathetic when you consider these employees would still have been receiving some of the top pay in the North America market for their field.

It really should come down to the old saying, "those that have the opportunity to work, and refuse to do so, should not expect the support of society."

If they had jobs, good paying jobs, and shut down a factory (decreasing our output as a nation), they absolutely have no right to EI, welfare, whatever. Let them starve to death until they come to their senses. I have no sympathy for such people.

[August1991]

Hmm.

In a column about why the CBC shows too many Michael Moore type documentaries, I find this:

It would just be nice to see more investigative filmmaking that took on topics sacred to the left getting airtime.

At present, a Quebec-based documentary called L'illusion tranquille is showing in movie houses in La Belle Province. The film argues Quebec's highly interventionist and union-dominated economy is not sustainable and is headed for crisis.

The film faced resistance. A producer said when she presented her proposal to the National Film Board, she had her Power Point presentation interrupted by an NFB official who said he did not like what she was saying.

Winnipeg Sun

[Charles Anthony]

So, who won the poker game in Olymel? The CBC reports:

Olymel workers endorse new contract

The Olymel pork slaughterhouse in Vallée-Jonction may be saved from closure after workers voted 62.2 per cent in favour of a new contract Tuesday.

CBC News

The rest of the article clearly reports that the laborers are accepting pay cuts.

Interesting. The Gazette reports that this was not a new contract. The union voted to accept the same concessions that they previously rejected:

Olymel workers accept concessions

Workers at an Olymel pork processing plant south of Quebec City voted 62 per cent yesterday to accept a contract with wage and benefit concessions they had previously rejected. The workers had been told they needed to accept the new contract or face the plant's closing in May. After rejecting the contract three times, they accepted the recommendation of a conciliator and voted to approve it by 62.2 per cent.

The Montreal Gazette

It is often not WHAT you say but HOW you say it. In this case, the CBC reported something that is misleading, in my opinion. Information and ideas are free and the CBC gets tax-payer's money for its operation. I have a lot of trouble accepting misleading information particularly when some one else gets it right and reports it right.

Maybe I am grasping at straws trying to cut down the CBC for being biased.

Hmm.

I second that.

[August1991]

To those living outside Quebec's borders, the film L'Illusion Tranquille might seem as compelling as watching poutine congeal. In an attack on Quebec's cherished model of state intervention and separatist obsession, the hour-long documentary relies on interviews with a decidedly unsexy array of academics, journalists and a panel of student government types talking about fiscal models and job seniority. Feel-good entertainment, it is not.

Macleans

[Curiouscanuck]

To those living outside Quebec's borders, the film L'Illusion Tranquille might seem as compelling as watching poutine congeal. In an attack on Quebec's cherished model of state intervention and separatist obsession, the hour-long documentary relies on interviews with a decidedly unsexy array of academics, journalists and a panel of student government types talking about fiscal models and job seniority. Feel-good entertainment, it is not.

Macleans

Good read.

We need provincial autonomy. Equalization is a welfare trap. This is especially true when it is used to finance a socialist agenda.

[August1991]

You can watch the documentary here:

L'Illusion tranquille Partie 1 de 4

L'Illusion tranquille Partie 2 de 4

L'Illusion tranquille Partie 3 de 4

L'Illusion tranquille Partie 4 de 4

Or, you can order the DVD here for $20.

The producers explain here that they have received private financing to produce an English version to be released this year.

Here is the National Post review which contains this good quote:

Ms. Marcotte, a former computer scientist, teamed with her husband, financial advisor Denis Julien, to produce the 72-minute film after becoming frustrated that Quebec media were largely ignoring the province's true problems.

After starting her research in 2003, she made the rounds of Quebec production houses with her proposal. She might as well have been pitching a film claiming Maurice Richard was a lousy hockey player. At the Montreal headquarters of the National Film Board, she was a third of the way into her Power Point presentation when she was told to shut it off, she recounted. "He said, 'I'm a child of the Quiet Revolution, and I don't like what you're saying.' " (The film's title is a play on Revolution tranquille, the French term for the 1960s' Quiet Revolution.)

The NFB representative is not alone. Mario Cloutier, film critic for Montreal's La Presse, concluded L'illusion tranquille did not rate a single star.

"This documentary asserts that Quebec shows no more solidarity and is no more egalitarian than its neighbours, rather that it sustains poverty, paralyzed under dogma established by state monopolies and unions," he wrote disapprovingly.

National Post

This documentary explains in part why the ADQ did so well in the Quebec election and why Stephen Harper has a good chance at winning a majority based on his potential seat gains in Quebec.

So few people have see this film that I don't think it had any effect on voters. BTW, it is being shown this week on the French Canal-D (which I think is the equivalent of the Discovery Channel).

[Free Thinking Film Society]

The Free Thinking Film Society is proud to announce that we will be showing "The Quiet Illusion" (L'Illusion Tranquille) on October 11th at 7 PM at the Bronson Centre in downtown Ottawa.

"The Quiet Illusion" is a 2007 documentary from Quebec that examines the province's state religion of unionism and the disastrous effect this has had on its public finances. Now showing in English Canada for the first time.

The director of this film, Joanne Marcotte, will also be attending the screening to answer any questions after the show.

For more details on the film, you can visit the official website at:

http://www.lillusiontranquille.com/

"This Quebec-made documentary does what no francophone film has ever done before: It systematically challenges many of the Province's sacred cows, starting with the untouchability of "le modele quebecois"....This Quebec movie requires looking in the mirror."

Henry Aubin, Montreal Gazette

"This self-produced documentary has provoked a veritable crise de conscience in the province's media and cultural circles, simply by pointing out what is becoming increasingly obvious: Quebec is broken."

Macleans

"The nightmare scenario in The Quiet Illusion involves an ageing society living beyond its means, unable to shake the grip of meddlesome government and powerful trade unions. The place is Quebec, and the year is 2007."

Graeme Hamilton, The National Post

Here are the details:

When: October 11, 2008

Time: 7:00 PM

Where: Bronson Centre, 211 Bronson Avenue

Admission: $5.00

For further information, please contact Fred Litwin at (613) 261-9060, visit our website at http://www.freethinkingfilms.com/, or join our Facebook group under "Free Thinking Film Society of Ottawa".

Edited September 17, 2008 by Charles Anthony
merged threads

[August1991]

If you live in the Ottawa/Hull area, I strongly recommend seeing this movie. I saw it in Montreal and found it thought-provoking.

Edited September 18, 2008 by August1991

[August1991]

Bump.

I had to do this, sorry.

[Michael Hardner]

You're bumping a 2-yr old thread asking if Quebec is (was ?) bankrupt ?

I guess the answer was no.

[August1991]

You're bumping a 2-yr old thread asking if Quebec is (was ?) bankrupt ?

I guess the answer was no.

Not to quibble but Quebec and Quebec Inc are two different things.

I bumped becuase of this thread: http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index.php?showtopic=17029&view=findpost&p=577178

[jbg]

I'm putting this in the federal category because I think this documentary will soon attract attention in English Canada. I saw it this morning in a cinema in Montreal and it was a full house for the 11 h 45 showing.

Can you translate those reviews into Canadian?