(Montreal) François Legault does not intend to lift the state of health emergency before the start of 2022, when children aged 5 to 11 will be vaccinated in turn.
Passing through the Bell Center on Thursday for an announcement concerning the development of hockey in Quebec, the Prime Minister remained firm: a state of health emergency is still necessary to make certain decisions.
“Currently, we give bonuses of $ 4 per hour because we miss people in health establishments. To be able to give these bonuses, which are not in the collective agreement, we are obliged to use the state of emergency, ”he gave as an example.
We need the health emergency to give the bonuses and we still need these bonuses to be able to encourage more people to work in our health establishments.
François Legault, Premier of Quebec
Mr. Legault made no reference to the opposition, which has been calling for weeks for the lifting of the state of emergency to be able to debate these decisions democratically. He also did not invoke the experts in rights and freedoms who are also wondering about the need to maintain this state of emergency, but he could not help but attack the unions: “The unions don’t like it. It’s like the world upside down. There are unions that are suing us for giving bonuses. I’ve never seen this before. ”
The key: vaccination for 5-11 year olds
For him, the key lies in the vaccination of children.
“Adding young people aged 5 to 11 will massively increase the percentage of the population that will be vaccinated. This gives prospects of being able to drop the vast majority of the instructions that we have around Quebec, ”he said.
“The vaccination passport, the masks, everything we have as instructions, we need the health emergency to do it. Once we have vaccinated say 80% of 5 to 11 year olds, it opens up good prospects for most of the instructions to disappear.
” It’s coming ; early 2022 ”, he then dropped.
François Legault did not hide his impatience to get the green light from Health Canada to be able to move on to the vaccination of children.
“We have been ready for several weeks. We think it will be announced in the next few hours. This completely changes the situation of COVID-19 in Quebec.
“One can hardly imagine better news than being able to vaccinate 5 to 11 year olds”, enthusiastically the Prime Minister, who hopes to be able to complete this new wave of vaccination in January “at the latest”.