The Minister of Culture, Nathalie Roy, affirmed that a withdrawal is at the origin of new delays in the process of selection of the next director general of the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec (CMADQ), which was marred last year by allegations of patronage.
Mme Roy confirmed that she had been informed of the reason for the backlog that was accumulating in this second process, which she had requested last summer. This decision caused the departure of several administrators from the educational institution who had been in charge of the first process.
Some had complained about the interference of Mr.me Roy in favor of a candidate, former PQ minister Maka Kotto, who had not been recommended by the administrators.
On Wednesday, at the National Assembly, the minister reported on the second process, to which Mr. Kotto had submitted his candidacy a second time.
“A person had been identified,” she said. I don’t want to get into people’s personal lives. But sometimes, in life, you want to do something else. So that’s why the process takes longer. »
Mme Roy said she is still waiting for recommendations from the board of directors, chaired by Monique Leroux since last July, whose exceptionally short term expired in December.
“I thought I had someone very interesting, but it doesn’t work. This explains why M.me Leroux stays there to find the person,” she said.
Mme Roy said Wednesday that she had called for a second selection process last summer because of serious internal management problems at the CMADQ. The Minister pointed to the people who occupied the positions of general management and chair of the CMADQ’s board of directors.
“Both people,” she said, declining to elaborate publicly on the subject.
Chaos
Prior to Wednesday’s press briefing, Mr.me Roy had come back to this file in the parliamentary committee, during the study of the budgetary appropriations of his department.
The minister accused the former chair of the board of directors, Marie-France Maheu, of not having waited for the government’s guidelines to begin the selection process.
“We decided to resume the exercise because the government had not shown its direction,” said Minister Roy. […] The nomination process had started without our authorization. We wanted to discuss the directions of the government. »
Mme Roy described this first process as chaotic in addition to criticizing the management of the team then in place.
“The process started in chaos for internal conservatory reasons. I’m going to stop that here because we had to do internal audits to find out what was going on. It was not going well. It was necessary to renew, to clean the slate. »
Library
Furthermore, M.me Roy also returned to another controversial appointment process, that of Marie Grégoire at the head of the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec (BAnQ).
To insistent questions from PQ MP Pascal Bérubé, Ms.me Roy was unable to rule out the hypothesis that she had chosen M.me Grégoire at the suggestion of Prime Minister François Legault’s office.
“We have chosen, and it is ultimately the cabinet that decides, the best person,” she said.
Present at the study of credits, Mme Grégoire declined to comment on the controversy sparked by his nomination.
“There is perception and there is reality,” she said. I know there was a process in which I participated. The fact remains that it remains the prerogative of the government. »