(Saint-Hyacinthe and Montreal) Pauline Marois ensures that the intervention in which she participated with five other former prime ministers to convince Christian Dubé to modify his reform complied with the rules on transparency and lobbying. The Minister of Health also took up his pen on Saturday to defend his aims.
The lobbying commissioner, Jean-François Routhier, questioned on Friday the transparency of the approach of the six former prime ministers who wrote directly to François Legault so that his government reverses certain elements of the reform of the Minister of Health . This extremely rare outing caused a stir last week in the National Assembly.
“It’s always easy to make these comments [après]but when we embark on this approach, we do it with complete transparency, with complete honesty and above all with a deep conviction that the health system would be better served,” argued the former Prime Minister in margin of the National Council of the Parti Québécois in Saint-Hyacinthe.
In a press release released Friday at the end of the day, Me Routhier questions the intervention of the former prime ministers, who published the content of their letter addressed to Mr. Legault on Tuesday, dissatisfied with the amendments proposed by Minister Dubé to his Bill 15.
“The public nature of this letter gives it an aura of transparency. But is this really the case? Does its content correspond to the minimum expectations of transparency set by the Quebec state for the benefit of its citizens when trying to influence the decision of a public institution, particularly in terms of legislative orientations? », asks the lobbying commissioner.
He argues that if a lobbyist had sent such a letter to the Minister of Health, he would have been required to comply with the disclosure requirements set out in the Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Act. According to him, there are also “numerous flaws” in the current law, notably “the exclusion, too often invoked, of communications of influence made voluntarily”, as here.
The six former prime ministers are opposed to hospitals and university institutes being “merged” into Santé Québec, the state corporation created by the Dubé reform. The Minister of Health has proposed a series of amendments in recent days to address some of their concerns.
“We are not doing it in the name of any person hidden behind the curtains, we are doing it in the name of establishments which have extraordinary expertise. If the Lobbying Commissioner believes that the law is not sufficiently clear, he can propose changes,” replied M.me Marois.
There are four lawyers among the six current prime ministers, I think they must be aware that there are rules to respect.
Pauline Marois, former Prime Minister of Quebec, from 2012 to 2014
Mme Marois also claims to have asked if “everything is correct and compliant with lobbying law” before getting involved. She also confirmed that the process had been launched by the president of the board of directors of the Montreal Heart Institute, Éric Bédard, as revealed last week by the Montreal Journal. She was “contacted” to participate and “mainly spoke” with Lucien Bouchard.
The letter is signed by Pauline Marois, Lucien Bouchard, Jean Charest, Philippe Couillard, Daniel Johnson and Pierre Marc Johnson.
Christian Dubé defends his reform
Furthermore, Christian Dubé took up his pen on Saturday to defend his reform project. “The pandemic has highlighted the gaps and challenges facing our health network,” he recalled on the social networks Facebook and X.
In this missive, he gives examples of how the health network will become more accessible and efficient, according to him, thanks to its reform. For example, Quebecers should be able to know where they are on a surgery waiting list and have surgery in another region, or even privately (reimbursed by the government) if the delays are too long before their operation, explains -he.
According to Mr. Dubé, the new Santé Québec agency “will make it possible to break down silos, but also to apply best practices more effectively throughout the network.”
The reform makes it possible to decentralize by separating the orientations, which will fall under the Ministry of Health and Social Services, and the operations, which will fall under the responsibility of Santé Québec, he believes. “It is even specified in the law that all decisions must be made at the decision-making level as close as possible to the patient,” specifies Mr. Dubé in his letter to the population. “It is no longer you who will adapt to the network, but rather the network which will make itself more accessible to you,” he adds.
Finally, Mr. Dubé affirms that a National Users’ Committee will be created to ensure that the “voice of patients is heard and that corrections can be made when unacceptable situations occur.” On Saturday, the Patients’ Alliance for Health rightly believed that the bill threatens to dilute the voice of users of the system.