Territorial development in Quebec: breaking with the past to help a region

For nearly twenty years, the region of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean to the north of Quebec has been in economic decline unnoticed. Even though its traditional industries have been able to modernise and to remain competitive, they have nevertheless lost jobs and the most dynamic employees have left the area. Professor Proulx realised what was happening and wanted to alert his fellow citizens to the situation. He encouraged them to consider the situation, look into the future as far as 2025, and to adopt a radically different strategy breaking with the current state of affairs. Although the culture of Quebec acknowledges the role that universities have of 'awakening consciences' (a fact which the French find very surprising), Marc-Urbain Proulx found it very difficult to make the population accept such disturbing forecasts. He had to organise a great number of meetings while remaining mindful of the population's pressing concerns. He wanted the population to realise that with the passage of time his theories would be borne out by events.