Yesterday...
All my troubles seemed so far away...

Those might be the words going round the head of Premier Pauline Marois and her minister for higher Education, Pierre Duchesne, looking back at last summer, before their Parti Québécois won last September's provincial election in Québec. At that...

Wars, conflicts, threats, famines, inequalities, extreme weather, natural and human disasters: worldwide, 2012 has been a year of challenges and disruptions. Some have been overcome and have turned out to be opportunities for the international community to learn and progress. But most remain unresolved and still desperately call for action...

Once upon a time, in a province where politics generated more suspicion than enthusiasm, at a time when trust was as rare as a rainy day in the desert, a newly-elected government was about to unveil its first budget.

On their way to power, members of that government had...