Most Canadian newspapers paint a grim picture of the economic situation in Quebec.
While clearly there are problems, the widespread view that the last couple of decades have witnessed a steady economic decline in Quebec is inaccurate. On the contrary, there is now a solid consensus among academic researchers that Canada's provinces have been converging in terms of economic performance since the early 1950s. Poor regions of the country, such as Quebec and the Maritime provinces, which started out with lower income per capita in the 1950s, did better, not worse, than rich provinces such as Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. The trend towards convergence has persisted even since the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976. Quebec's per-capita income went from 75 per cent of Ontario's in 1961 to 80 per cent in 1976 and 83 per cent in 1996.