Date Published:
November 2005

Documents of Quebec History / Documents de l'histoire du Québec

La loi du cadenas

The Padlock Law

Quebec Politics

[1937]

[This editorial was published in the Canadian Forum. For the precice citation, see the end of the document.]

THE political situation in Quebec is doing everything but stand still. The people "changed" their government last August, and are now beginning to discover, as are the people of the Dominion, that a shift between two capitalist parties is no change at all. Mr. Duplessis' achievements to date are paltry in the extreme. He has adopted an unenforceable law prohibiting corporations from floating bonds to an amount greater than the "real" value of their assets (whatever that may mean) ; he has adopted old age pensions, but even his opponents were committed to that before their defeat; and he has now come forward with a scheme for a provincial "hydro". This last move was rendered necessary to stave off the growing pressure from Dr. Hamel and his followers, whose drive for direct action against the power trust, in Quebec was supported to the point of resignation by Oscar Drouin, minister of lands and forests. The so-called hydro ostensibly aims to aid municipal ownership, and to develop government power sites in areas not already served by private interests — that is, in the less profitable areas of the province. At best Mr. Duplessis' plan will provide a few "yardsticks", and will possibly be of help in the new mining districts. It will leave the ordinary consumer just as exploited as before and sooner or later the Quebec voter will find this out.

Source: Editorial, "Quebec Politics", in Canadian Forum, Vol. XVII, No 195 (April 1937): 4.