There are several ways to dehumanize a debate and make the most vulnerable among us invisible. Among them is the use of disembodied, often governmental, jargon that directs humans to the objects and services they need to thrive normally. Toddlers are thus calculated in available places, students in ratio, sick people in waiting lists, children of the DPJ in accommodation units and women and children victims of domestic violence in doors, in the words of the Minister responsible for Housing.
“We are not doors,” author and columnist Kim Lizotte responded on Instagram, whose words were echoed on social networks. We agree: “talking about housing abused women in real estate agent terms” is, yes, clumsy, if not offensive. This is not the first time that the insensitivity of Minister France-Élaine Duranceau has been pointed out. The fact remains that, on the part of a government which has proclaimed itself champion of the fight against femicide – not without reason, because it has laid important stones since 2021 in this area – this speech betrays a certain dissonance.
If the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) uses these convoluted formulas in abundance, it does not have the prerogative of them. No party escapes it. But as it is the Legault government which is at the head of the State, it is often from the mouths of its ministers that those which are perceived as the most disconnected come out, while we get lost a little more in the mazes of our public services filled with holes and cracks.
Fundamentally, Minister Duranceau is not wrong: the market has gone crazy, and at “900,000 or a million a door”, the costs of the proposed projects can, yes, be judged “excessive”. The Société d’habitation du Québec estimates that this average cost should instead be $575,000. The margin to be gained is enormous, probably unrealistic. His colleague Minister of the Status of Women is right to believe that there is a long way to go on both sides to meet the urgent and essential needs of those who are struggling with a spiral as dangerous as that of the domestic violence.
Only, there is the art and the manner, which M does not haveme Duranceau. There is also a duty here to put things into perspective that the Legault government is careful not to do. Had we forgotten, other flagship CAQ projects have faced a market that has gone into a tailspin. Budgeted at one billion, its network of seniors’ homes is now close to three billion, “for rooms costing $800,000 to $1 million each.” There was no question of going backwards: the government absorbed the price shocks without flinching.
Certainly, the Minister of Culture has sounded the death knell for his Blue Spaces network. Too expensive, too, for our means. The project, although driven by noble intentions, had been judged unrealistic from the start by many, including a large number of cultural actors. Not the right project, not the right priorities and not the right accounting scale. Its end was written in the sky, like that of the Blue Basket, for the exact same reasons.
Already last May, Superminister Pierre Fitzgibbon, questioned about the delays and cost overruns of the Metropolitan Express Network, candidly admitted: the times are resolutely “inflationary”. “Do you think there are many projects today that don’t have cost overruns? he then said on the fly. There are not any. All projects have cost overruns. » It’s still just 2024.
There is no more margin. This is why we expect this government’s choices to be irreproachable. Pulling the “plogue”, as we often say in Quebec, is not an evil in itself. That our leaders allow themselves to do so testifies to a salutary critical spirit. The Legault government, however, abuses its right to rear flexibility, to the point of putting in the same empty basket projects of brilliance (bye, the blue spaces; hello, the Kings!) and essential missions, which it seems to have a problem crazy to plan according to the scales of the day.
This is where the problem lies for this government which is multiplying good programs, but struggling to bring them to fruition with its ill-adjusted compass. Think about the Act Early in Early Childhood program, which is unable to find its cruising speed. Think more recently of the doctoral cohorts in psychology that he committed to funding to counter the shortage of psychologists in the public network, but which are failing due to lack of consistent funding.
Shelters for women and children victims of domestic violence should not end up falling into this sad trap. Being in charge of the State is not just about juggling numbers and concrete, it is also about embodying a certain idea of this State and the services expected of it. Even more so when the winds are contrary.