Legault shuffles his cards: this is what the new Council of Ministers will look like

Deputy Prime Minister Geneviève Guilbault will become the ball carrier for the third Québec-Lévis link as head of Transport, and rookie Christine Fréchette inherits a delicate mission at Immigration. Disqualified from the post, Jean Boulet will retain his functions as Minister of Labour, learned The newspaper.

• Read also: Legault’s card game

• Read also: Call for unity: Legault does not want a family dispute

• Read also: 5 challenges for the future Minister of the Capitale-Nationale

François Legault will unveil this afternoon the ministerial team on which he will bet for his second term, which he wants under the sign of continuity.

Its new Council of Ministers will be a little stronger than during the previous legislature, made up of 29 or 30 people depending on what it was possible to learn in the evening, and will remain in a gender parity zone.

A prestigious recruit in the riding of Sanguinet, it is the former director general of the East Montreal Chamber of Commerce, Christine Fréchette, who will be responsible for Immigration.

• Listen to the Yasmine Abdelfadel and Marc-André Leclerc meeting broadcast live every day at 6 a.m. via QUB-radio :

Former deputy chief of staff of Jean-François Lisée, she resigned in 2014 to mark her disagreement with the charter of Quebec values ​​defended by the Parti Québécois.

Close to François Legault, her talents as a communicator will be required after the unfortunate statements on immigration by Jean Boulet and the CAQ leader himself during the election campaign, which have offended many members of cultural communities.

Behind the scenes, people boast of his good knowledge of the reality of Montreal, which will be an asset in managing this sensitive file.

Disqualified from Immigration, the elected representative of Trois-Rivières will be maintained in his functions as Minister of Labour. A position that suits him well, he who is a lawyer specializing in labor law.

Guilbault and the third link

Geneviève Guilbault will retain her title of Deputy Prime Minister, and she will move from Public Security to Transport.

In this capacity, she will find herself at the controls of the extension of the blue line of the Montreal metro and the controversial $ 6.5 billion tunnel project between Quebec and Lévis.

Ironically, she becomes the one who will have to defend the third link and convince in particular the mayor of Quebec Bruno Marchand, when she will no longer be minister responsible for the Capitale-Nationale.

It is the MP for Charlesbourg and former Minister of Natural Resources, Jonatan Julien, who takes over the post he has coveted since his election in 2018.

other news

The first indigenous woman elected to the National Assembly, Kateri Champagne Jourdain will also mark history by becoming the first to accede to the Council of Ministers.

It was not possible at the time of writing these lines to know which ministry will return to the Innu businesswoman who brought down the PQ castle of Duplessis for the benefit of the CAQ on October 3 last.

Among the other newcomers caquistes, the ex-analyst Martine Biron, elected in Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, will join the Council of Ministers, just like his neighbor from Lévis, Bernard Drainville.

Heavyweight and hyperactive minister of the Legault government, Simon Jolin-Barrette will retain the crucial role of leader of the government and will have to be conciliatory.

At the end of the campaign, its leader reached out to the opposition parties, saying that he wanted to govern in a spirit of collaboration.

Proud to have had a new charter for the French language adopted at the end of his mandate, Jolin-Barrette will however see the responsibility for the language being entrusted to another of his colleagues.

According to our information, few deputies from the first caquiste vintage of 2018 who hoped to become ministers during the first term will see their dream come true today.

Some whose names have circulated in recent years had not received the expected call in the evening yesterday, while François Legault nevertheless started the meetings on Tuesday, after the swearing in of the deputies.

Already, it had long been established that the pivotal ministers Christian Dubé, for Health, Eric Girard, for Finance, and Pierre Fitzgibbon, for the Economy, would retain their functions.

In Fitzgibbon’s case, it’s about increased energy responsibilities.

Christian Dubé will have to rely on a new chief of staff, Julie Lussier, formerly with Jean-François Roberge in Education, since Jonathan Valois, his right arm during the management of the pandemic, preferred to leave for other responsibilities.