It is never easy to make up a council of ministers. These are difficult choices, especially when you have 89 deputies as is the case for François Legault.
However, it is inconceivable that a region like Abitibi-Témiscamingue, which voted for three CAQ MPs, is not at the decision-making table.
We can imagine that several voters voted overwhelmingly for the Coalition Avenir Québec, because they believed that their region was going to be in power.
Clearly, the Prime Minister has decided otherwise and now an entire region is mobilizing to ensure that it does not fall into oblivion.
Resource regions
Abitibi-Témiscamingue has no minister and we can also see that all the resource regions are under-represented in the CAQ cabinet.
Roughly speaking, the CAQ has two ministers in the 13 CAQ ridings in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Nord-du-Québec, Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Côte-Nord and Gaspésie.
Thus, only 15% of Caquiste deputies are ministers in these regions, while the provincial average is around 33%.
Clearly, there should have been more members of the cabinet from resource regions or more remote.
Party of Regions?
Last week, during the swearing-in of the 90 deputies of the CAQ, François Legault said he was proud that his political party was represented in the seventeen administrative regions across the province.
Unfortunately, we have to believe that this pride was not there when it came time to decide who was going to have access to the select club of the council of ministers.
During the pandemic, the Prime Minister showed us that he could recognize his mistakes and that he was not afraid to go back to better move forward.
Very quickly, Mr. Legault will have to demonstrate to the resource regions, which voted for him, that they too deserve a place of choice at his side.