As well tell you right away, I am a fundamentalist of democracy. I believe that the right to vote is the most important right, the one that determines all the others. Without the right to elect and fire our representatives, no other right is immune. Likewise, I consider that the elected member has the most important function, since his decisions in the Assembly can modify, for good or ill, the condition of all citizens.
The decision of MNA Joëlle Boutin to slam the door nine months after being elected by the citizens of Jean-Talon makes me feel sick. The casualness with which this lady treats the four-year electoral contract concluded with her voters is to vomit. It is not the first to fail democracy, but each time an elected official treats the democratic mandate with contempt in this way, an additional scar appears on the civic edifice.
MPs are not prisoners and must be able to leave, of course. But I dream of including the offense of electoral desertion in the Penal Code. Except for a person struggling with serious health problems, verified by a doctor appointed by the Chief Electoral Officer, an elected official who deserts his office should be subject to three sanctions. First, ineligibility for a quarter of a century, therefore the ban on running for elected office anywhere in Quebec. Then, the withdrawal of his right to vote for the same period. Since this person has so little respect for this right, he no longer has standing to exercise it. Finally, the cost of organizing the by-election made necessary by the desertion would, purely and simply, be transformed into a tax debt that the deserter will owe to the State.
For meme Boutin, that would amount to $600,000. We would see if the company for which she is deserting the Assembly grants her, as a hiring bonus, an equivalent sum. Otherwise, good prince, the Ministry of Revenue would give him all the time he needed to pay off the debt, at the current interest rate, of course.
These measures would have an immediate impact: the end of all desertion, its transformation into an extreme, extremely rare case, which is exactly the desired signal to underline the seriousness of the matter. At the moment of crossing the door of the Blue Room, the future elected officials would know that it is not a question of a revolving door, of an internship leading to another career at the moment of their choice. When the voters choose you for four years, the contract is of such importance that one breaks it only at one’s own risk and peril.
I would be hardly less severe with the other deserters of the representation of the State. When our general delegate positions are filled by members of our diplomacy or public service, we are in good company. These people have a sense of the State and do not let us down. But when external personalities are chosen for these positions, the desertion rate is truly scandalous.
This was true for appointments from the Parti Québécois, the Liberal Party and, today, the Coalition avenir Québec. I could make here the list of people who were moved to New York, Brussels or elsewhere at great expense, for a period which was normally to last four years, but who left after one or two years. Some because they discovered that the work of a delegate was not as prestigious as they had thought, others because they felt they had done the trick, several still attracted by enticing offers in the private sector.
As a former Minister of International Relations, I can attest that the effectiveness of our representations abroad is only achieved over time, as the development of interpersonal relations with the decision-makers of the countries concerned, to say nothing of good knowledge of the files, is a determining factor. The deserters, there, should know that they will be made to assume the installation costs of their replacement and that they will have to reimburse the State a sum calculated in this way: the number of months remaining in their mandate, multiplied by their monthly salary as delegate. I would add: a ban on being appointed to any government position for the next ten years or, if they start their own business, on obtaining government aid during the period.
Do you find me harsh? I am, but only on a par with the frivolity with which too many people treat state service. Like you, I was a big fan of Sophie Brochu. And I believe that there are few greater privileges, for a private or public Quebec manager, than to be called upon to lead the largest and most symbolically charged of our companies: Hydro.
At first I was flabbergasted to hear her say, to a parliamentary commission, that she would resign if she were forced to no longer sit on the board of directors of the Bank of Montreal (which, as we know, is in fact a bank in Toronto), which earned her $220,000 a year. I learned two things: that it was allowed to combine the two functions, which should, in my opinion, be prohibited; that all things considered, she would prefer BMO to Hydro.
Then, she deserted, announcing to us that she had decided in her heart of hearts that having established the strategic plan of which she was so proud, she did not consider herself to be the right person to implement it. That it was therefore up to her to shred the mandate she had accepted from the Council of Ministers, from the government of the nation, a year before its term. I would have preferred her to tell us that it was visceral: she couldn’t be in the same room as Fitzgibbon. If a doctor’s note had been able to attest to it, which I have no doubt, I would have agreed to give up.
Father, columnist and author, Jean-François Lisée led the PQ from 2016 to 2018. | [email protected] / blog: jflisee .org