(Quebec) The members of Quebec solidaire adopted on Sunday an emergency proposal calling for the triggering “as soon as possible” of a public inquiry into the management of the pandemic in CHSLDs.
At the very end of their essentially virtual congress, they judged that the “serious shortcomings and inconsistencies of the health network” revealed in the last days at the coroner’s inquest, as well as the causes of the mismanagement, deserve an examination. more in-depth.
Québec solidaire – like the other opposition parties – has been asking the National Assembly for such a public inquiry for months, without success.
With the mandate of his activists, parliamentary leader Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois intends to “follow François Legault all week on this issue.”
“Our members want us to relaunch this requirement for a public commission of inquiry” and “we must increase the pressure on François Legault”, he added at a press conference at the end of the congress.
The investigation by Coroner Géhane Kamel “is not invalidating the idea of a public inquiry commission, (it) is fueling the relevance of this investigation because we discover that a lot of things went wrong. You cannot lose thousands of seniors in Quebec and say to yourself: it doesn’t matter if you just learn half the truth ”.
This is not the only reason why the Legault government will be in the hot seat in the coming days, as MPs return to the House after a week-long adjournment of parliamentary business. On Tuesday, the Ombudsperson Marie Rinfret will make public her special report on the management of the COVID-19 crisis in CHSLDs during the first wave of the pandemic.
She had tabled a devastating progress report in December 2020. And the final report is expected to be in line with it. “CHSLDs have been the blind spot in preparing for the pandemic,” she concluded. At the time of the first wave, the government had “a lack of knowledge” of the issues experienced in CHSLDs, although they are well documented. “It is because of this ignorance of the situation [des CHSLD] that we got caught up in an acute crisis. […] It was explosive, ”she added.
During the QS congress, activists endorsed the appointment of Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois as candidate for the post of prime minister – which confirms his function as parliamentary leader – and that of Manon Massé as candidate for the post of deputy prime minister.
Alejandra Zaga Mendez, ex-candidate in Bourassa-Sauvé and researcher in ecological economics, succeeds Nika Deslauriers as president of the party.