The Maclean's cover that rocked Quebec

Quebec's government as it pertains to an octopus, and other musings on the "Most Corrupt Province in Canada."

The cover story in the Oct. 4 issue of Maclean’s has raised hackles in Québec by calling it “The Most Corrupt Province in Canada” (and for depicting the lovable Bonhomme mascot carrying a briefcase full of dirty money). Yes, critics say, there is a history of scandal in Quebec — Adscam, Airbus, and Jean Charest’s current corruption woes — but that doesn’t mean the province towers above the rest when it comes to dubious dealings.

This is “just another in a long line of gratuitously offensive sorties against the one province that dares to insist on having its own identity,” says a scorching Montreal Gazette editorial. The paper accuses Toronto-based Maclean’s of committing “a journalistic drive-by shooting,” arguing there are “cases of waste and corruption elsewhere in the country that might easily match Quebec's for seriousness but … these cases have not been given the same kind of high-profile, lengthy coverage or investigation as Quebec's.”

The Gazette’s Henry Aubin calls the piece “a journalistic embarrassment” for Maclean’s. He flips the article on its head and says that it should be taken as a compliment to the province’s press. “After all, we still wouldn't know of the widespread sleaze … if not for Montreal's investigative reporters.” He suggests a better headline would have been “the province with the most journalistic success in unearthing corruption."

Corruption in Québec is such a given for Sun Media’s Eric Duhaime that he writes “I never thought it was news.” He offers two reasons commonly cited for the persistence of corruption in his home province: the large size of the Quebec government, and the preoccupation with sovereignty which “prevents us from being interested in the good management of our tax dollars.”

The excellent bloggers at macleans.ca, who usually post something whenever the finance minister sneezes, have been largely silent on the cover story, but Andrew Coyne defended the magazine last week, writing that of course there is corruption in other provinces, but “in no other province does it feel quite so . . . inevitable.” No province can match “the kind of octopussal industry-union-mob-party configuration lurking just below the surface of politics in Quebec.”