Quebec Scores Again...This Time in Infrastructure Shittiness!!

A road in a small town outside of Montreal collapsed around 1am Thursday. The "sinkhole," as it's been described, was caused by "a buildup of ice, debris, and wood in a stream that flowed under the roadway."

As a resident of Montreal, I can safely (or not so safely depending on your point of view) tell you that roads in the province of Quebec suck. And I'm not just talking about minor road problems, I'm talking about major potholes and cracks that run the length of the majority of roads in Quebec. Driving along Sherbrooke street, a primary street located in the heart of Montreal, is plagued by a series of potholes so big that if your car were to hit one, it would be disastrous to your suspension. Drivers can often be seen swerving to avoid these treacherous pits, even in the dead of winter when road conditions are already bad enough due to ice and freezing rain.

I'll concede that weather has a huge influence on road conditions. The smallest crack in the road, when filled with water, can become a ravine when that water later freezes, forcing the pavement to divide. A large portion of the blame can be attributed to these expanding cracks, but an even larger blame can be put on city workers. These workers are lazy and slow to repair such things. This is exemplified by the recent probe into the working habits of city workers, which revealed that workers can often be found taking their sweet ass time doing repairs. Some were even caught going to a bar to get a drink before coming back to finish the job.

This situation isn't terribly unusual, when taken out of context. Allow me to provide that context. Quebec, like all provinces in Canada (except Alberta), charges a Provincial Sales Tax (PST) on top of the national Goods and Sales Tax (GST). You're probably wondering what the big deal is if all provinces have this PST. Well, the kicker is that Quebec's PST is a whopping 7.5% compounded with the standard 7% GST. What does that mean? It means that your subtotal is taxed 7% GST to create a new subtotal. An additional 7.5% tax is placed on that new subtotal. In short, tax on tax. This places Quebec's taxes among the highest in the country.

One might be inclined to think that Quebec would then have the most resources at hand to deal with such minor problems as potholes. This is not the case. Instead of say, repairing roadways, they choose to spend their money elsewhere. That "elsewhere", in my humble opinion, is their continued efforts to gain sovereignty from the rest of our great country. The Parti Quebequois (PQ) insists on fighting for this deranged idea that they would be better off without the rest of Canada. And it gets better. Not only do they want sovereignty, they want to keep on using our currency. Now stop and think for a moment: does it make sense to you that an independent country would use the currency of a country from which it had just excluded itself? The answer would be a resounding NO.

I'm not really sure where I was going with this, but perhaps this last bit will clear things up. Quebec is not somewhere you would want to live. I'll say it again: QUEBEC IS NOT A GOOD PLACE TO LIVE IN. You will find yourself living in a province where potholes abound, taxes are ridiculously high, and people are so arrogant that you'll want to shove poisoned rags down their throats whenever they open their filthy pretentious mouths (on a side note: to all my friends who actually grew up here, you are all excluded from this gaping generalization).

On the bright side: Quebec is an OK place to visit, but don't even consider staying here. It would be a fatal mistake. Man, I can't wait to get the fuck outta here!