Prime Minister François Legault is more than ever ready to “draw on his reserve of courage” in order to achieve some of his ambitions.
At least that’s what he’s been telling the members of his team since the Coalition avenir Québec’s decisive election victory on October 3.
“The PM told us: ‘We let the polls do their thing. We let the press review take care of itself,” said one of his advisers on the sidelines of a meeting of the Coalition avenir Québec parliamentary group.
Even if he will have to “take a beating” to get there, Mr. Legault is determined to set up the Health Quebec agency, to build hydroelectric dams to decarbonize Quebec, to adopt new measures to strengthen French or even revise the organization of the work of professionals in the health and education networks, whose collective agreement expires on March 31.
Members of the Autonomous Federation of Education (FAE) reminded him of this. Under red hats, they chanted on Friday “aim, aim, aim ever higher for education!” in front of the Sheraton center in Laval, where the elected caquists were gathered to prepare for their return to the National Assembly. The storm threatens.
“It’s going to be a big session. It’s going to be a big year. It’s going to be a big four-year mandate, ”warned Mr. Legault, warmly, after meeting each of the ministers of his government as well as each of the leaders of the opposition political parties to discuss their priorities. The leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, alone had eight “official proposals”. “We have challenges to overcome! summarized the Prime Minister in a press briefing on Friday. One of them is not to scatter.
Behind the controls of the Quebec state for four years, François Legault likes to remind the members of his team of a former father’s statementPrime Minister Lucien Bouchard: “When you’re in government, there’s a reserve of courage, then you dip into it and at some point there isn’t any left. It means that you don’t scatter, focus on it, ”said the ex-boss of Mr. Legault (1998-2001).
Choose your fights
In power, Prime Minister Philippe Couillard was quick to clean up public finances by imposing, in particular, the modulation of the rates of educational childcare services, to reform the health network and to review municipal pension plans. . “We literally saved Quebec,” boasted the Liberal leader in December 2016, before being shown the door by voters less than two years later.
Even if the CAQ controls 90 of the 125 seats in the National Assembly and enjoys great popularity, François Legault chooses his fights. He has no intention of raising the retirement age, reviewing Hydro-Québec’s domestic rates in the short term in order to encourage customers of the government corporation to program their dishwashers for midnight, or still subject CEGEPs to the Charter of the French language, he said this week.
It has not been demonstrated that restricting access to the English-language college network to those entitled only, i.e. children whose father or mother received a primary education in English in Canada, could reverse the decline of French, says a member of his bodyguard. The CAQ leader did not become dogmatic in favor of the last general elections, at the end of which he obtained a parliamentary supermajority, he said.
Moreover, François Legault is convinced that “History will judge him” on the actions taken by his government to ensure the vitality of the French language in Quebec.
On Friday, Minister Jean-François Roberge announced the creation of the Action Group for the Future of the French Language (GAALF), whose members will have the “mission” of establishing an “ambitious government action plan” to “slow down, stop, then reverse the decline of the French language”, not without having previously consulted “experts” and “actors in society”.
François Legault is always able to “adjust along the way”, we specify. Moreover, an economic slowdown could force him to draw a little more on his “reserve of courage”.