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32 The Americas
The Economist
September 22nd 2018
O
N A sweltering Sunday afternoon in
Old Montreal, the first of dozens of
people began arriving at Quebec’s immi-
gration department armed with folding
chairs. They were intent on being near the
front of the queue the next morning, Sep-
tember 17th, when the province’s govern-
ment began accepting the first of only 750
applications for private citizens to sponsor
refugees. The fact that Montrealers were
prepared to sit outside all night to bring in
more refugees shows why François Le-
gault, leader of the Coalition Avenir Qué-
bec, has tripped up on the path to victory
in the election for the provincial parlia-
ment onOctober1st.
After almost 15 years of a Liberal gov-
ernment, Quebeckers are open to change.
The Coalition’s promise not to support in-
dependencemeans that for the first time in
a generation voters whowant to remain in
Canada do not have to choose the Liberals,
the only big party in Quebec that favours
staying in. Mr Legault has come unstuck
with his populist impulse to back a plan to
cut immigration by 20% from 52,000 last
year, subject immigrants to a language and
values test and expel thosewho fail it.
His supporters are divided. The pro-
mise is popular in rural areas where there
are few immigrants. But in theMontreal re-
gion, where immigrants account for 23% of
the population, it has gone down badly.
That may derail the Coalition’s chances of
winning seats in an area which returns 27
of the assembly’s 125 members. It is also
unpopular with businesses, which need
workers to fill around 90,000 vacancies.
Other party leaders derided the plan dur-
ing a televised debate on September 17th.
Philippe Couillard, the Liberal leader and
current premier, asked whether immi-
grants would be dumped on a bridge be-
tweenQuebec andOntario.
Mr Legaultmayhave thought hewas on
firm ground in a province where protect-
ing the French language and culture has
been a defining issue since the British con-
quest in 1759. Immigration has become
more ofa concern inCanada since asylum-
seekers began ignoringofficial channels by
walking across the border with the United
States. Almost 35,000 have come since Jan-
uary 2017, most of them to Quebec. Justin
Trudeau, the Liberal prime minister, was
heckled on a recent visit to the province by
a woman asking who would pay for the
border-crossers. The Conservatives, the of-
ficial opposition in the national parlia-
ment, though not in Quebec, call it a crisis.
Maxime Bernier, a former Conservative
MP
fromQuebec, recently created the Peo-
ple’s Party of Canada to oppose “extreme
multiculturalism” among other things.
As many Quebeckers appear not to
share his views on immigration, Mr Le-
gault is losing ground. Polls show that his
party, once apparently heading for a ma-
jority,maybe lucky to formaminority gov-
ernment. Back at the immigration depart-
ment, Ali and Taherah, an elderly
Canadian couple originally from Iran, are
tired but cheerful after a longwait to apply
tobring their son andhis family toCanada.
Ali thinks that the reaction to Mr Legault’s
anti-immigrant stance show that those es-
pousing populist policies inQuebec are al-
ready running out of steam. “In 2019 or
2020 it might stop,” he says.
7
Quebec’s election
Keeping an open
door
MONTREAL
The front-runner trips up over
immigration
Cuban honey
Worker bee’s paradise
A
LBERTOQUESADA loads a flatbed
lorry in a field in themiddle of the
night for a two-hour drive to the dense
mangrove swamps on the Gulf of Bata-
banó. “It’s important that theywake up
in their newhabitat,” he says of his cargo
of bees. In the summer his 30,000 hive-
dwellers feast on coastal flowers; in the
autumn they forage onmilkweed and
morning glories further north. Around
October it is off to themountains, as
Cuba’s trees reach their prime, before he
brings the bees back to his farmabout an
hour’s drive fromHavana. There, they
have their pickof palm, mango and
avocado trees, fresh vegetables—an un-
common luxury in Cuba—and a garden
teemingwith sunflowers, lilies and
bougainvilleas. The diets of thesewell-
travelled insects aremore diverse than
that ofmost Cubans.
It is good to be a bee in Cuba. Beekeep-
ers elsewhere lose around 20% of their
colony in thewinter. Climate change,
parasites, the intensification of pesticide
use, urbanisation and an obsessionwith
tidiness are causing colonies to collapse.
“Wemowour lawns and trimour hedges
somuch that there are nowfewer places
even forwild bees to nest,” says Norman
Carreckof the British-based International
Bee Research Association.
Communismhas done Cuba few
favours but it has proved a boon for its
bees. Impoverished farmers cannot
afford pesticides. A lackofmodern
equipment and little economic incentive
to farmmeanmuch of the island’s vege-
tation iswild in away that keeps bees
well nourished and produces high-quali-
ty honey.
While honey production inmost
countries has taken a hit alongwith
hives, Cuba’s healthy bees have been
busy. The population is growing by an
average of 7,000 hives a year, each yield-
ing around 52kg of honey in 2017, double
the average fromAmerican hives. Al-
though nine-tenths of total production,
around10,000 tonnes last year, isman-
aged by private farmers likeMrQuesada,
they are obliged to sell it to the govern-
ment at a little over $600 a tonne. It is
then exported, mostly to Europe, where it
fetches $4,600 a tonne for ordinary hon-
ey and $14,000 for the 16% that counts as
organic. Were a costly certification pro-
cess not required, muchmore could fetch
such a premium.
Cuba’s honey industry is tiny com-
paredwith that ofworld leaders (bees in
China, the biggest producer, make over
500,000 tonnes a year) but it is a valuable
agricultural export. And despite the state
reapingmost of the rewards, farmers,
who profit from selling some honey to
fellowCubans, are keen to expand.
In anticipation the government has
opened a newbottling facility that will
increase production capacity to15,000
tonnes a year, and plans to sell more
organic honey and by-products such as
beeswax. But high-quality hives need to
bemobile. Cuba’s terrible roads and
scarce fuel do not help. Even thewood
and netting required to build hives are
hard to come by. All thesewill need to
improve to keep the business abuzz.
ARTEMISA
Agricultural backwardnessmakes forhealthyhives
Capitalist bees in the state’s bonnet