I have two children and not a single morning, during their entire schooling, did I wonder if there would be a duly trained teacher to teach them French and mathematics. Today, I know parents who ask themselves this question.
Will we get used to this new reality as we have gotten used to the fact that getting an appointment with our family doctor within a reasonable time is practically a miracle?
Around me, people are becoming more and more cynical when they talk about their experiences with different government departments or agencies. They complain about the endless waits, the voicemail boxes with endless options, the hospital that still requires a fax, the immigration file that won’t be cleared… It makes you wonder if we don’t take a perverse pleasure in ourselves complicate life. And I’m not talking about the advanced decrepitude of certain schools, roads, certain hospitals…
When more and more citizens turn to the media to resolve their problems with the government apparatus (hello, Paul Arcand!), there is something wrong.
Is the shortage to blame?
A disabled man is deprived of one of the two weekly baths to which he is entitled. CISSS decision. His mother, a 70-year-old woman who is his caregiver, takes over, at the risk of injury. She doesn’t want her son to lose his dignity. This is one of the cases reported in the annual report of the Public Protector, who intervened with the authorities concerned. Result: we restored the second bath.
Last year, nearly 50,000 people contacted the Public Protector for all kinds of reasons. With good reason: when this institution intervenes, the problem is almost always resolved, as if by magic.
Don’t tell Me Marc-André Dowd, Ombudsman, that we must resign ourselves to the disappearance of essential services due to labor shortages. He rejects this argument.
When a restaurant closes on Tuesday and Wednesday due to labor shortages, we can call it inevitable. But when we talk about basic public services, especially for vulnerable people, this is not an acceptable position.
Me Marc-André Dowd, public protector
In other words, the labor shortage is a problem, but there are limits to blaming it for all the failures of the system.
Full professor in the political science department of McGill University Éric Bélanger observes that the management of government services has become more complex. “Since the Quiet Revolution, the State has taken on more missions and offered more services. »
At the same time, we are witnessing a bureaucratization of public services. “A whole system has developed that makes it more complicated and more difficult to deliver the goods,” he believes.
“The pandemic highlighted that our ways of doing things were not that effective,” Mr. Bélanger further believes. We are still experiencing the repercussions of this crisis. It may eventually settle down, but we may also be heading towards the end of a governance model. »
How did we get here ?
To the shortage of labor and the complexity of the state apparatus, we must add the resignation of the active population which explains, in part, the lack of resources. Researcher at the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information, Myriam Moore recalls that the crisis we find ourselves in was predictable.
The labor shortage has been discussed for a long time. The Institute of Statistics of Quebec and Statistics Canada are not there for nothing. We must admit that we lacked vision.
Myriam Moore, researcher at the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The shortage of teachers in Quebec schools can threaten students’ academic success.
“We were understanding in the case of the SAAQ or the passport office, but when we talk about a shortage of teachers in classes, it is much more serious,” believes Stéphane Paquin, full professor at the National School of Public Administration.
The problem, according to him, is that “in Quebec, we do not use scientific data, we do not think in the long term. And between crises, we don’t evaluate ourselves.”
Mr. Paquin has a good knowledge of Swedish society (yes, Sweden again!). “There,” he said, “we’re always looking to improve.” However, the culture of evaluation has not entered Quebec. The powers of our Auditor General are limited and parliamentary committees work urgently. The classic case in Quebec is a commission that shovels the problems forward, and when the report is finished, it is entitled to a first-class burial. »
Are we partly responsible?
I wondered if this feeling of perpetual crisis was due, in part, to the fact that we are more impatient, more demanding too.
“It is true that the increase in the level of education means that we are better informed and able to make more sensitive judgments on the state of governance,” notes Professor Éric Bélanger, who believes that the environment media and technology require the government to be constantly accountable. “Citizens are more critical and it is more difficult to govern than before,” he adds.
Same story from Guylaine Saucier, president of the board of directors of the Institute on Governance (IGOPP). “Communication technologies have improved so much over the last 10 years that we are aware of all problems instantly,” she believes. It doesn’t help perception. »