According to our Prime Minister, MPs would have the “right to earn as much money as possible to give as much as possible to their children”. Launched while the government is trying to justify a 30% salary increase for MPs, this formula should not surprise us. When the Minister of Health says he wants to attract top guns from the private sector to manage the future Santé Québec agency, it follows the same logic: to attract better managers, they must be given preferential salary treatment.
Since 2018, the favorable prejudice of the Legault government towards the creation of wealth has led it to want to take great care of the alleged actors of this creation and to claim a certain “pragmatism” in order to fill the wealth gap between Quebec and Ontario. At the beginning of his first mandate, we were far from a government with strong doctrinal inclinations.
Then came the pandemic. For two years, Quebeckers have massively rallied behind their government, both waiting for protection against a virus with poorly understood effects and in the hope of receiving the necessary services in times of health crisis.
Return of ideological perspectives
All of this is changing. The “pragmatic” and paternalistic government of François Legault gives way to the “management government”. In the midst of emerging from the pandemic and with glaring financial needs in all of the State’s missions, in the midst of a housing crisis and in the midst of a climate catastrophe of which there is no end in sight, the Prime Minister decided to go forge ahead with its costly promise of tax cuts: $1.7 billion in lost revenue that will, all things considered, go more into the pockets of high-income taxpayers.
Why such a policy? Essentially in the hope of adding the equivalent of 16,000 workers to the province’s labor pool and thus helping the bosses who are supposedly in need of employees.
Let us also think of the Health Plan, tabled last spring and of which Bill 15 is the most recent avatar. On the program: transform the “corporate culture” of the health and social services network by entrusting the famous top guns from the private sector to manage the network.
Finally, let’s mention the privatization of Accèslogis for the benefit of the brand new Quebec Affordable Housing Program. This was first designed to support the private sector by organizing competition between promoters in search of profits for the realization of social housing projects. It does not include any guarantee that a minimum of housing built will be reserved for low-income tenants and does not provide any start-up funds, which are essential for non-profit developers.
Rule as a boss
The exit from the pandemic is therefore very enlightening. The Coalition avenir Québec in fact governs more centrally, which does not prevent it from nurturing very specific ideological ambitions. Because the center, let us remember, is not necessarily a place of balance, neither too much to the left nor too much to the right. It is the place of the status quo which, today, takes the form of employer domination.
We must give the bosses the fiscal policy they want, entrust them with the management of our health network and hand over to them the responsibility of resolving the housing crisis. Considering that 30% of the current cabinet comes from the business world and another 17% is made up of former senior private sector officials, this orientation should not encounter many dissenting voices within the cabinet.
The figure of the savior boss imposes a certain authoritarian style. Neither the customer nor the employees have a say; because in business, the boss is king. The last time Quebec had a leader of this style, a quiet revolution was necessary to bring us collectively out of our torpor.