Driving school lectures are overly-long narcolepsy-inducing chinwags in which bored teachers state the most obvious information ever uttered by a human voice.
And yet the provincial government has made the courses mandatory for those who want to drive.
The financial burden associated with that requirement makes driving impossible for many.
That's a shame because getting a drivers license is a key component to escaping poverty.
If a child from a single-mother welfare home wants to apply for a job that requires a drivers license or driving to work, he simply cannot because his family is too poor to get their hands on the $900 fee that such a dubiously-necessary education requires.
I have complained about this financial oppression to the Quebec ministry of transport, which caps the maximum price of lessons at $875 - a price that rises after textbooks and other fees are factored in.
The ministry told me that the driving schools have had the gall to ask to charge even more..
A simple bit of math will tell you that the schools have already got a gold mine on their hands already as the government is shifting tens of millions to these schools already.
A few phone calls will suggest that price-rigging might even be a possibility, as the supply of lower-cost schools has vanished over the years.
A few years ago in a misguided witchhunt, local media did a gotcha story on low-cost schools that allowed students to study from a computer screen. These driving schools were shut down by the government, which is a bad thing because they charged much less.
It should be noted that many other provinces and states don't even require driving lessons and indeed Quebec was in that group for several years.
Cars have become increasingly autonomous and safe and courses could conceivably be greatly shortened in the near future. The lessons are less needed than ever.
Here's a reddit thread I started on the subject a few weeks ago that attracted 156 comments.