The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, is ready to withdraw a controversial amendment from his Bill 15 on the health system if it withdraws services from Anglophones. At the same time, he admitted that he did not understand the details of this modification.
At a press briefing on Friday, Minister Dubé affirmed that his government had made a commitment that there will be no change to health services for the English-speaking community.
“We will check with the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) because the amendment could perhaps be interpreted as a possible change to the status of certain English-speaking hospitals. I said to the OQLF: “you are going to explain to me what would change because if we have to modify it or remove it, we will remove it”,” he said. assured.
Liberal André Fortin is more categorical. “The government of Quebec has introduced an amendment which will give it the right to unilaterally withdraw the bilingual status of hospitals and health centers in the province,” he said on Friday. He asks the minister to simply remove this article from Bill 15.
The Gazette reported Friday that the Quebec Community Groups Network condemned this amendment which, according to the organization, would revoke the right to health services in a language other than French.
Bill 15 is 300 pages long and contains nearly 1,200 articles. Christian Dubé still had to admit that he did not understand the amendment. “We have reached 1200 articles. […] I didn’t understand that one. I didn’t understand the detail,” he said.
“The opposition is doing a very good job. They asked a question and I said, ‘I’ll check,'” he added.
The amendment in question was introduced on Tuesday before being suspended in order to clarify its real scope.
With a week remaining before the end of the parliamentary session, the opposition parties fear that Minister Dubé – who has regularly said he wants to see his reform adopted before Christmas – will impose a gag order.