The Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, pledged on Thursday to tighten his bill ending the state of health emergency after unanimously against him with his legislative text, described as a “real joke” by the oppositions.
Its bill 28 provides that “sixty decrees” issued under the state of health emergency remain in force. In a press scrum to “clarify” his intentions on Thursday, Minister Dubé undertook to reduce this number to “three or four” categories.
The list of decrees concerned by the bill has not been detailed by the government. Mr. Dubé’s bill stipulates instead that the contracts “still in force at the end of the state of health emergency and which are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of screening or vaccination clinics” remain active until the end of the year.
Contracts for the storage and transport of goods could be modified – in duration and value -, then “extended” for “a period of five years following the end of the state of health emergency”, is it he writes.
A “blank check”
Enough to make the opposition say that Minister Dubé is asking for “a white check” and that his bill does not really put an end to the state of health emergency.
“This government is so used to governing by decree and it is so comfortable in this big democratic Laz-y-boy that it does not want to get out of it”, launched the united deputy Vincent Marissal . He compared the bill to a “dinner of idiots”, while his colleague Manon Massé called it a “real joke”.
Asked about the lack of clarity in his bill, Christian Dubé relied on the busy agendas of state lawyers and the pressure put on by the opposition to table the legislative text. “Our forensic experts are full of them. […] We were put under a lot of pressure to be able to file it as soon as possible, ”he said. He pledged to deliver a technical briefing to opposition on Monday and to reduce the number of executive orders in effect after his bill passes to “three or four” categories by March 25.
He repeated that he wanted to keep decrees concerning education (for distance training, for example), operations (for vaccination and contracts in particular), telemedicine and, possibly, bonuses.
The minister assured that he had no intention of renewing decrees once they have fallen. However, he did not record this intention in his bill. “That’s what’s fun in law: sometimes you don’t have to say that you don’t do it to not have the right to do it,” he said.
Doubts about contracts
The possibilities that the government keeps open about private contracts in the bill have also fueled criticism from the opposition.
“Yesterday, the Minister of Health told us that he gave his moral assurance that there would be no more over-the-counter contracts and moreover that there hadn’t been any for some time. . However, today, we learned that between March 3 and March 8, there were three over-the-counter contracts. What is the moral assurance of the CAQ worth? asked Liberal leader Dominique Anglade.
Thursday, Le Devoir revealed that, contrary to what Minister Dubé suggested, three over-the-counter contracts were launched between March 3 and 8 under the state of health emergency. Asked about this, the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, turned her heels in the corridors of Parliament.
The Prime Minister, François Legault, meanwhile replied to Ms. Anglade by offering her his collaboration. “If the opposition collaborates, and then it passes the bill, the only contracts we will be able to sign is to keep, store the equipment where it is now,” he said.
Minister Dubé, for his part, has undertaken to modify his bill to include a procedure for monitoring contracts, if this appears necessary. “If the opposition wants to make suggestions to us to better reframe certain things, I will be very open,” he said.