The quarrel which, for the past few weeks, has pitted Québec solidaire (QS) against the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) on the question of the increase in the salaries of MNAs may seem futile, but it says a lot about the vision of society conveyed by the government.
The CAQ tabled its Bill 24 in early May, which proposes a $30,000 increase in the base salary of elected members of the National Assembly. Since then, the rag has been burning on this issue between the government and the second opposition group.
Bernard Drainville got his feet wet by pointing out, in clumsy broad strokes, a distinction that he thought was obvious between the salary increase offered to deputies and that which is refused to teachers. Then, in a new episode of this soap opera, Québec solidaire said this week that it was determined to use all the parliamentary means at its disposal to block the adoption of the bill. This gave rise to a particularly tense exchange in the National Assembly between François Legault and Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
François Legault defended his bill in these terms: parliamentarians are also fathers and mothers of families, who have the right to earn “as much money as possible” to give “as much as possible to [leurs] children “. “That’s how I see life! “he launched, before leaving the Blue Room, reproaching Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois for saying” nonsense “.
It is well understood that above all, it is a question of a conflict of values; what is at stake is symbolic, but it is significant. This insistence by François Legault on defending the right of parliamentarians to a “competitive” salary is in line with the fundamental conviction that seems to drive this government, namely that leading Quebec is above all a business project and that, to “runner a business, you have to give yourself the means to attract the “right” people.
It is no secret that this posture is reflected in almost all the choices, in all the orientations, of this government. It’s in its DNA, in its culture. It is no coincidence that the Council of Ministers of the CAQ has more people from the business world than previous governments, as the Institute for Socioeconomic Research and Information (IRIS) pointed out this week in a post of blog.
In the Council of Ministers, currently, the main sector represented is the business world, with 30% of the members. Next come people from the private sector (16.7%) and the legal community (13.3%). This is a higher proportion than that of the governments of Philippe Couillard, Pauline Marois and Jean Charest.
Of course, this did not prevent previous governments from taking several decisions completely disconnected from the needs of citizens, especially the most vulnerable (no one forgets this). It is also not surprising that the vast majority of elected officials, regardless of party, are professionals from backgrounds where one enjoys favorable opportunities, a certain power and a certain symbolic capital. Still, the fact that this government has so many people from the business world especially has concrete effects.
This is accompanied by a clear and uninhibited importation of ways of doing business in the conduct of the state and in the development of public policies. This dictates an intense and assumed proximity to the networks where, to put it roughly, the cardinal value is money and, as a corollary, power. Pierre Fitzgibbon never blushed at the blame received for his conflicts of interest and his inappropriate friendships; he even congratulated himself on it several times.
This shapes the government’s relationship with the workers and, above all, with the trade unions. Rarely have we seen a Prime Minister address such explicit criticism to union representatives in the context of public sector negotiations.
This manifests itself in the relative atrophy of the democratic muscle within the party itself. We saw it clearly during its recent congress: it is a party where there is little debate, where people present themselves in the authorities to congratulate the leader and affirm their support for the brand.
This is also what is reflected in the imminent appointment of the former CEO of the Caisse de depot et placement, Michael Sabia, at the head of Hydro-Quebec. Echoes are enthusiastic from the side of the business world, while the decision is greeted with skepticism, even concern, by experts in energy management. As Quebec reaches a critical point in its energy transition, it is feared that this appointment signals priorities of another order.
There are undoubtedly legitimate arguments to justify the salary increase for elected officials, but here, it must be read in its context, and so it seems more like a whim of François Legault, who is worried about not being able to continue to surround himself with entrepreneurs, managers, bosses — in short, people like him — to run a certain business called “governing Quebec”.
Columnist specializing in environmental justice issues, Aurélie Lanctôt is a doctoral candidate in law at McGill University.