QUEBEC CITY // For all the stereotypes of Canada as a ho-hum, steady-as-she-goes sort of place, politics here can be a wild ride.
With virtually no warning from pollsters, voters have dealt Quebec's separatists a stunning humiliation and set off a debate about whether the French-Canadian province even needs a separatist movement in this globalised age.
The upheaval wrought by the May 2 parliamentary election is not unusual: in 1993 voters stripped the ruling Conservatives down from 151 seats to just two, in one of the biggest reversals in the annals of parliamentary democracy.
This time they reshuffled the deck four ways: by routing the Bloc Québécois separatists; handing an unassailable majority to a Conservative prime minister; boosting the leftist New Democratic Party from obscurity to leader of the opposition; and relegating the Liberals, long considered Canada's natural party of government, to third place.
The Bloc Québécois slumped from 47 seats to 4 in the 308-seat federal Parliament, rendering it all but impotent at the national level at a time when Quebec separatists are also out of office in their own province.
Separatism "may not be dead, but it's hardly healthy. You can't divorce the election results from the larger picture of sovereignty versus federalism," says Chantel Hébert, a respected political commentator from Quebec.
One reason may be that Quebec, 80 per cent French-speaking, has plenty of independence without quitting Canada. It sets its own income tax, has its own immigration policy favouring French-speakers, bases its legal code on France's and has legislation favouring the use of French. Still, the province of 7.8 million people always has been a contentious subject: in the 1760s, when the British completed their takeover of what was then called New France; in 1867, when the country of Canada was formed as a dominion under Queen Victoria, and a century later, when it thrilled to the visiting French president Charles de Gaulle and his cry of "Vive le Québec libre!" — long live free Quebec.
Spasms of terrorism in the 1960s and late 1970 injected menace into the campaign, and a "language police" on patrol for overly prominent displays of English, added an Orwellian undertone that triggered an exodus of English-speakers, mostly to neighbouring Ontario.
Since then Quebec has gone through one election, referendum or constitutional parley after another, sometimes falling a hairsbreadth short of approving secession.
Even now, no one is predicting the death of the independence movement. For one thing, this was a national election, and the Parti Québécois (as opposed to the Bloc Québécois) remains strong as a provincial party, even if out of power now. It stands a good chance of winning the next provincial election, in 2012 or 2013, at which point it could hold another referendum on secession.
From 1993 until this month's rout, the Bloc had won the majority of Quebec's 75 seats in six straight federal elections. Now it may want to shift its efforts from contesting national elections to boosting the provincial party as the standard-bearer of the independence quest.
But for now, the defeat is so thorough that a wave of young unknowns, mostly New Democrats, suddenly find themselves in parliament.
Even the Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe was unseated. "It's very hard to fight change, especially change represented by ghosts - candidates who didn't bother campaigning, who didn't speak French," he grumbled.
Not all Quebec French-speakers want to quit Canada. The province currently is governed by the Liberals, whose leader, Premier Jean Charest, is a staunch federalist who rejoices at the swing to the NDP.
"They don't want the referendum, sovereignty, independence option," he said. "We're not there. They've moved on from that issue, so that's a very positive sign."
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Kanguva
Director: Siva
Stars: Suriya, Bobby Deol, Disha Patani, Yogi Babu, Redin Kingsley
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
We Weren’t Supposed to Survive But We Did
We weren’t supposed to survive but we did.
We weren’t supposed to remember but we did.
We weren’t supposed to write but we did.
We weren’t supposed to fight but we did.
We weren’t supposed to organise but we did.
We weren’t supposed to rap but we did.
We weren’t supposed to find allies but we did.
We weren’t supposed to grow communities but we did.
We weren’t supposed to return but WE ARE.
Amira Sakalla
