État québécois, crise et néolibéralisme

• Main Authors: Philippe Hurteau, Francis Fortier
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association d'Economie Politique 2015-03-01
• Series: Interventions Économiques pour une Alternative Sociale
• Subjects: accumulation by depossession; extractivism; governmentality; Plan Nord; public services; tarifing
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/interventionseconomiques/2469

The 2007-2008 economic crisis has been used by the Quebec government to establish a series of public policies which further propel the neoliberal commodification of common goods. Rather than embodying a structural adjustment of the Quebec economy aiming at avoiding the impact of a new economic crisis, two of these policies, the “révolution tarifaire” and the “Plan Nord”, are better understood as part of a new phase of capitalist development. These two policies set the basis for the development and intensification of extensive capitalist logics. In this research note, we will circumscribe the key elements of these policies whilst emphasising their non-necessary character. We will argue that, for these two case study, the crisis was merely a pretext in order to establish and legitimize these new policies, rather than their original trigger.