MONTREAL — Quebec Premier Jean Charest put out the welcome mat for Jewish immigration, asking the community to help encourage Jews from around the world to make the province their home.
Premier Jean Charest, right, is welcomed to Cummings House by Quebec Jewish Congress president Adam Atlas, left, and Federation CJA president Marc Gold.
“I’d like to see Jews from all over the world look to Quebec and see that this is where they would like to live. For too many years, too many in the communities went elsewhere, because they did not feel comfortable here,” Charest said at a dinner hosted by Federation CJA and Quebec Jewish Congress on Aug. 27.
Charest said Quebec needs to boost its population if it wants to be economically strong and maintain its social expenditures.
This was the first time Charest, who was first elected in 2003, spoke at such a gathering of the Jewish community, and he came at its invitation.
Close to 500 people attended the elegant $150-a-plate event at the Gelber Conference Centre, including six provincial cabinet ministers, Liberal, Parti québécois and Action démocratique du Québec MNAs, federal MPs and senators, the mayors of Trois-Rivières, Ste. Agathe des Monts and St. Jérôme, diplomats from several countries, and representatives of a number of ethnic communities. Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay was unable to attend, because of a death in the family.
“The presence of so many parliamentary colleagues should be taken as a compliment. It speaks of the very high esteem in which we hold the Jewish community,” said Charest, who received standing ovations before and after his address.
Charest recalled that the last time he was in the federation’s Cummings House was six years ago when he attended the opening of the Holocaust museum with his then 15-year-old son.
Any Quebecer who visits that museum, he said, will understand why the State of Israel was created and why Jews hold it so dear. “When you know the history, you know why this state exists today and why the state is so important to the people of Israel.”
Attachment to Israel or Canada does not detract from being a proud Quebecer, he added.
“We are all Quebecers, proud of our origin. Identification with being Jewish or with Canada or Israel is not a contradiction, but a source of enrichment.”
Charest was effusive in his praise for the contribution of Jews to Quebec in many spheres over more than 200 years, and he paid particular attention to the community’s history in his native Sherbrooke, which today has a Jonathan Rosenbloom Street, in recognition of one of its prominent citizens.
Charest’s scheduled topic was to share his vision of the future of Quebec.
He described the province’s current economic situation as “fairly good” with a relatively low deficit that represents 1.3 per cent of gross domestic product.
“That’s half of the federal government’s and Ontario’s, and in the United States it’s about 12 per cent and Europe 5.3 per cent.”
The Quebec and Canadian economies have weathered the downturn better than most other places because “we’re dull, we save more, we capitalize more. Dull is good.”
Prudent management of the country’s banks and financial institutions have left Canada and Quebec in relatively healthy shape, he said.
To attract more people to Quebec, Charest said he is seeking partnerships with Europe that will be “models of globalization,” allowing freer economic, research and cultural exchange.
“With a country the size of Canada, no one is going to come knocking on our door. We have only three per cent of the world’s economy. We have to go out there and persuade others to work with us.”
He also wants to make it easier for workers to move within Canada and said Quebec is nearing the conclusion of a deal with Ontario to create “the fourth-biggest economy in North America.”
Charest, who was elected to his third term in December 2008, also spoke of his long-term dream of developing the vast territory of northern Quebec, which has great untapped resources, including recently discovered diamonds.
Charest, 51, believes he will see the opening of a new maritime route in the Arctic within his lifetime. Today, the United States, Europe and Russia don’t recognize the territory as Canadian, “yet it is ours,” he insisted.
As a token of appreciation, Charest was presented with a sterling silver mezuzah with two small fleur-de-lys in its design.
The only discordant note of the evening was a noisy demonstration outside the building by about 100 bikers protesting the Quebec government’s increase in motorcycle registration fees.