(Quebec) To carry out her investigation into the deaths in CHSLDs, coroner Géhane Kamel had assigned no less than five ministers to testify, The Canadian Press learned on Tuesday.
Posted at 3:46 p.m.
However, only two ministers of the Legault government finally went to deliver their version of the facts: the former Minister of Health Danielle McCann and the Minister of Seniors Marguerite Blais.
It is that an agreement has been reached between the Coroner’s Office and the Attorney General of Quebec, according to the response provided to the Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) following a request for access to information.
We have traced emails exchanged between the prosecutors of the Coroner’s Office and those of the Attorney General, but they fall under the professional secrecy of the lawyer, and are therefore strictly confidential, it was said.
In addition, five ministers have been subpoenaed to testify at the inquest, but they are refused to be identified. “Witness subpoenas are not public until the coroner has submitted his inquest report. »
In an interview on Tuesday afternoon, the PLQ spokesperson for access to information, ethics and justice, Gaétan Barrette, protested against this “abuse of non-transparency”.
“The coroner had an interest in seeing certain people. They didn’t come, why? asks the elected Liberal, who demands that the agreement be immediately made public.
He wonders whether the Attorney General, in this case the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette, blocked testimonies, or if ministers were able to testify behind closed doors.
Géhane Kamel, who heard some 220 witnesses, must file his report on deaths that occurred in CHSLDs during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic before the summer.
In the spring of 2020 in Quebec, nearly 4,000 seniors died in CHSLDs, some in the most total solitude, and having not been fed or hydrated.