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“The proposed law seems to impose a single framework, and that when innovation would be promoted by the co-existence of many frameworks.”

To be sure, none of this will make a whit of difference to the Liberal plan to legislate Über out of existence, because as potentially provocative as Leblanc’s comments may be, Couillard knows the Board of Trade’s membership is far less likely to picket him, his cabinet ministers or the National Assembly than those taxi industry representatives who believe there’s no quo like the status quo.

And one may suspect that the apparent game of political three card monte Quebec played with Montreal’s Denis Coderre and Quebec City mayor Régis Labeaume when it came to labour negotiations with their unionized employees was also inspired by the fact that even though the municipal unions didn’t muster the 10,000 to 15,000 demonstrators they claimed would show up yesterday before the Quebec City convention centre where Couillard met with the Union des municipalités du Québec, the 4,000 or so who did show up very likely made enough noise for the Liberals to decide to manage the expectations of the province’s major cities.