« What I hope is that there are among our readers people who are slowly being convinced that things need to change in Quebec and who will eventually decide to get more involved. »

    Thanks a lot for your thoughtful letter. I agree with you that there is not much attention being paid to the youth in the publications and activities of the libertarian movement. The Institute for Humane Studies in the USA has been doing a great job offering scholarships and seminars to college and university students – including Canadian – who want to deepen their understanding of libertarianism. For younger kids, I don't know that anything is being done, although in this case I would consider parental involvement the most crucial factor.                    
  
    In our case, it is rather easy to explain why. People who believe in individual freedom and free-market economics are few and far between in Quebec. Although some courageous individuals like our collaborators Pierre Lemieux and Jean-Luc Migué held the fort during the last decades, it is only now that we can say some sort of organized movement is really emerging, thanks in part to the internet. But it will take a lot more people, organisation, writing, publishing, and fund-raising, before we can devote resources to more specialized goals like focusing on the youth.  
  
    For now, our aim (the QL group at any rate) is first of all to provide an alternative viewpoint on current affairs, so that interested readers can see that libertarian ideas exist, make sense, and maybe reflect what they had always thought. Bringing together hundreds of isolated individuals and providing a forum where these ideas can be debated is already a huge breakthrough. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Quebec who share at least some of our ideas, but they never hear them defended anywhere and don't really know how to identify them precisely. We need to reach as many as possible. 
  
    Beyond that, a more long-term goal is to influence the general « climate of ideas » in our society. If people in political circles, in academia and the media see that we exist, that what we say and write is shared by a significant percentage of the population, and that it offers a reasonable alternative to the nationalist and left-wing gobbledygook that we hear all the time, they will have no choice but pay attention to it. Already, le QL and activities by the Montreal Economic Institute have been reported on in the mainstream press. This is a crucial stage. If we can break through the wall of ignorance and disdain that exists today and help make libertarian ideas acceptable among intellectuals and opinion-makers, then they will potentially reach even more people.  
  
    All of this will not happen, or will be of little consequence, if there are not more freedom fighters around to spread the message. Such an important shift in ideology, politics and economics cannot happen with only a little band of dedicated people doing all the work. What I hope is that there are among our readers people who are slowly being convinced that things need to change in Quebec and who will eventually decide to get more involved: people who will start writing to us; students who will change the focus of their studies and will become the libertarian thinkers of tomorrow; parents like you who will want to transmit different values to their children; entrepreneurs who will reject the state's involvement in their business; other people who will want to set up associations or get involved in one way or another.  
  
    Only then will we be able to divide the work among ourselves and be able to compete on various issues with the statist politicians, the lobby groups, the union mafias, the socialist intellectuals and other parasites. I can only hope that this will happen soon and that more efforts will then be focused on educating and helping young people to fight the Leviathan and create a better world for themselves. 
  
    Yours,  

M. M.