A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING THE POLITICAL ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF QUÉBEC

Iacob Gagné-Montcalm Phd student University of Manitoba

INTRODUCTION

• Planning a transition involves detailed knowledge of economic structures, industries, and value chains.
• Steinberger, Guerin, Hofferberth, and Pirgmaier (2024) noted that “Recent proposals for democratic ecological planning focus on general principles and mechanisms (Hahnel, 2021; Legault & Tremblay-Pepin, 2023) but neglect the specificities of provisioning systems (such as their relation to human need satisfaction, or their impacts on workers, end-users, and communities).”
• A new theoretical framework is proposed for Quebec's economy, integrating class analysis, social metabolism, and provisioning systems.

MINING INDUSTRY

PROVISIONING SYSTEM

• Provisioning systems encompass the ecological, technological, and institutional elements that connect production, distribution, and consumption.
• They are the continuous processes aimed at transforming biophysical resources into goods and services designed to satisfy human and social needs, constrained by the consumption object they produce (Bärnthaler et al., 2022; Fanning et al., 2020; Jo & Todorova, 2018; Steinberger et al., 2024)
• Challenges neoclassical economics by focusing on production, surplus, institutions, and social organization of provision.

• Physical elements:

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• Technical tools and infrastructures

for transforming energy and materials

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• Social elements:

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• Governance mechanisms
• Power structures
• Cultural meanings
• Economic logics

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FIRST LIMITATION

• Little emphasis is placed on the influence of material stocks, such as infrastructure, on the flow of resources included in a system of provision (Fanning et al., 2020).
• Focusing on stocks and flows in the analysis of these systems offers a more robust theoretical framework and enhances their practical relevance (Schaffartzik et al., 2021).
• Material stocks like infrastructure and machinery play a crucial role in provisioning systems.

SOCIAL METABOLISM

• Conceptualizing the dialectical nature of interactions between material stocks, resource flows and social practices in a stock-flow-service (SFS) nexus
• Material flows of resources and energy that traverse the economic system, from extraction through production and consumption to dissipation (Plank et al., 2021; Haberl et al., 2021).
• ‘’Flows limit and enable the use of stocks; stocks mediate the use of flows and use mediates the command of stocks overflows.’’ (Pineault, 2013).

Source : Helmut Haberl et al., “Stocks, Flows, Services and Practices: Nexus Approaches to Sustainable Social Metabolism,” Ecological Economics 182 (2021): 106949, quoted in Éric Pineault, A Social Ecology of Capital (London: Pluto Press, 2023).

MATERIAL EXTRACTION

MATERIAL EXTRACTION

MATERIAL FLOW AND STOCK

MATERIAL FLOW AND STOCK

FINANCIAL FLOWS

 �PROVISIONING SYSTEM THAT ACCOUNTS FOR SOCIAL METABOLISM

• Schaffartzik, Pichler, Pineault, Wiedenhofer, Gross and Haberl (2021) have recognized the need to link this conceptualization of the stock-flow-service nexus to the study of provisioning systems.
• By adding biophysical and tangible structures and processes, the study of provisioning systems makes it possible to investigate the links between production and consumption from both a socio-metabolic and a political-economic perspective (Schaffartzik et al., 2021).
• The socio-metabolic dimension focuses on material flows, the input and output of resources, transformation processes and the accumulation of stocks of materials such as infrastructure, buildings or machinery. From this perspective, material stocks become structuring elements in the way provision systems transform energy and material flows into goods and services. 
• The political-economic dimension, on the other hand, focuses on actors, institutions, power relations and capital investment in provision systems, factors that shape resource distribution and access to goods and services (Schaffartzik et al., 2021; Bärnthaler et al., 2022).

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CLASS ANALYSIS

• The provisioning system approaches recognize the role of institutions, power structures and social relations in shaping economic outcomes.
• The System of provision approach recognizes that these are made up of actors (firms, states, consumers), institutions (regulatory frameworks, property regimes), structures (class and gender) and discursive and cultural practices (advertising and symbolic meaning-making) (Fine & Bayliss, 2020).
• Throughout the production chain, different players will occupy different roles, whether in terms of extraction, transportation, distribution, transport, manufacture, sale, use or disposal (Steinberger et al., 2024).
• Investment decisions related to the construction, maintenance, and dismantling of material stocks are continually subject to social contestation.
• Reflect divergent interests but also influence the direction of future investments.
• Since material stocks and the investments that support them benefit some actors and societal groups while disadvantaging others, tensions inevitably arise (Plank, 2021; Schaffartzik et al., 2021).

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Source : Steinberger, J., Guerin, G., Hofferberth, E., & Pirgmaier, E. (2024). Democratizing provisioning systems: A prerequisite for living well within limits. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 20(1), Article 2401186. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2024.2401186

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WORKERS

END-USERS

INVESTORS

FINANCIAL OWNERS

FINANCIAL OWNERS

FINANCIAL OWNERS

• ‘’Organizational power over society concerns the capacity to influence public policy, control pools of labour (including creating employment-dependent communities and regions), monopolize access to crucial material resources, and externalize costs and burdens to communities and states.’’ (Bédard & Pineault, 2022)  
• At the point of extraction (territorial control):
• Ownership and control over resource reserves and extractive capacity, through fixed capital
• Infrastructure, and extraction equipment.
• Organizational power anchored in a specific territory
• Shape labor markets (e.g., creating dependency through fly-in/fly-out employment systems).
• Externalizing costs (e.g., environmental and social damages) onto communities and governments. (Bédard & Pineault, 2022)  
• In the structures of circulation (global control):
• Control over international distribution networks and commodity supply chains.
• Strategic actions to block or undermine emerging competitors.

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COMMUNITY-MEMBERS

• Overinvestment in production capacity (Bédard & Pineault, 2022)
• Undermining local economic benefits and regional development
• New investment projects, such as road building, railroads, pipelines or mining sites, are always strongly contested by societal movement.

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SECOND LIMITATION

MINING LEGISLATION

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Loi sur les mines

• Allows anyone to prospect and acquire exclusive property rights over mineral substances with minimal constraints.
• Includes free access to public lands, the ability to obtain ownership rights, and the right to undertake exploration and exploitation activities.
• No one can prohibit or impede access to state-owned mineral lands for holders of prospecting or staking rights.
• Consultation with affected communities is not required before granting exploration titles (claims). (Handal, 2010)

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FREE MINING LEGISLATION

• In its schema d’aménagement du territoire, the RCM (Regional county municipality) may delimit territories incompatible with mining activity (TIAM), territories where the viability of activities carried out there would be compromised by the impacts generated by mining activity.

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• Except for the delimitation of TIAMs, the RCM cannot prohibit or limit mining activity involving mineral substances belonging to the domain of the State.

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• TIAMs have the effect of withdrawing from prospecting, research, mineral exploration and mining any mineral substance belonging to the domain of the State and located on land that may be the subject of a claim.

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• Bill 63 provides for the withdrawal from prospecting, exploration and mining of mineral substances located in private property and urbanization perimeters. It allows a MRC where the withdrawn mineral substances are located, on its own initiative or at the request of a local municipality, to request partial or total lifting of the withdrawal.

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• Plank, C., Liehr, S., Hummel, D., Wiedenhofer, D., Haberl, H., & Görg, C. (2021). Doing more with less: Provisioning systems and the transformation of the stock-flow-service nexus. Ecological Economics, 187, 107093.
• Propose this schematization of provisioning systems, which recognizes both the SFS nexus and the role played by the state in conflict mediation.
• Helps to shed light on the specific institutional arrangements that shape provisioning systems.
• By mapping out the actors involved in a given sector, the analysis reveals the underlying power dynamics and highlights the state's mediating role, exercised through legal and institutional frameworks as well as through public policy interventions.

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PROVISIONING SYSTEM AND THE TRANSITION

REFERENCES

• Bärnthaler, R., Haderer, M., Novy, A., & Schneider, C. (2022). Shaping provisioning systems for an eco-social transformation (Polanyi Paper #003). International Karl Polanyi Society.
• Bayliss, K., Fine, B., & Robertson, M. (2013). From financialisation to consumption: The systems of provision approach applied to housing and water (Working Paper No. 02). Financialisation, Economy, Society and Sustainable Development (FESSUD).
• Bayliss, K., & Fine, B. (2020). A guide to the systems of provision approach. In K. Bayliss & B. Fine (Eds.), A guide to the systems of provision approach: Who gets what, how and why. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Bédard, S., & Pineault, É. (2022). Accumulation at the point of extraction: Understanding contemporary capitalist dynamics in large-scale extraction illustrated by iron ore mining in Northern Quebec. Studies in Political Economy, 103(3), 195–221. https://doi.org/10.1080/07078552.2022.2161223
• Dallaire-Fortier, C. (2025). Shaped by boom-and-bust: A history of the Canadian mining industry since 1859. New Political Economy, 30(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2024.2373053
• Fanning, A. L., O'Neill, D. W., & Büchs, M. (2020). Provisioning systems for a good life within planetary boundaries. Global Environmental Change, 64, 102135.
• Handal, L. (2010). Le soutien à l’industrie minière : Quels bénéfices pour les contribuables ? Institut de recherche et d’informations socio-économiques (IRIS). https://iris-recherche.qc.ca
• Hahnel, R. (2021). Democratic economic planning. Routledge.
• Haberl, H., Schmid, M., Haas, W., Wiedenhofer, D., Rau, H., & Winiwarter, V. (2021). Stocks, flows, services and practices: Nexus approaches to sustainable social metabolism. Ecological Economics, 182, 106949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.106949
• Jo, T.-H., & Todorova, Z. (2018). Social provisioning process: A heterodox view of the economy. In Social provisioning process: A heterodox views (pp. 29–32)
• Legault, F., & Tremblay-Pepin, S. (2023). A brief sketch of three models of democratic economic planning. Research Center on Social Innovation and Transformation. http://innovationsocialeusp.ca/en/crits/publications/a-brief-sketch-of-three-models-of-democratic-economic-planning
• Staritz, C., Tröster, B., & Wojewska, A. N. (2024). Price-making in provisioning systems and social-ecological transformation? The cases of the electric vehicle metals copper, cobalt, and lithium. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 20(1), 2327667.
• Steinberger, J., Guerin, G., Hofferberth, E., & Pirgmaier, E. (2024). Democratizing provisioning systems: A prerequisite for living well within limits. Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 20(1), Article 2401186. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2024.2401186

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