Quote of the week
The answer is simple, no. It’s no. There is no question of tolerating this new invasion of Quebec’s areas of jurisdiction on the part of the federal government, which wants to arrive with new conditions, which wants to meddle in our affairs.
The Minister responsible for Canadian Relations, Jean-François Roberge, who denounced the tenant assistance plan presented by Ottawa
Number of the week
10,000
This is the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) civil servants who have been added to the workforce of ministries and agencies since the coming to power of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), which promised to reduce the size of the function public. This is an increase of 14.4%.
The CAQ eclipse
PHOTO RYAN REMIORZ, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Prime Minister François Legault
The same goes for François Legault’s press briefings as for voting intentions in favor of his party: they are in a dramatic decline. The Prime Minister speaks less and less to parliamentary correspondents. He brushes aside the questions. He slips away, to use a popular image. The final straw came Wednesday when he was asked about his broken promise to reduce the size of the civil service: “I wish you a good day. The Canadian won against the Colorado Avalanche, that’s not nothing! »
From Gerry Boulet… to Julie Masse
Les députés font parfois preuve d’imagination pour trouver une formule accrocheuse et faire valoir leur point de vue au Salon bleu. La libérale Jennifer Maccarone a quant à elle décidé de piger dans les classiques de la chanson québécoise pour attaquer le bilan de la CAQ en matière de création de places en garderie. « Comme disait Gerry Boulet : vous leur avez monté un beau grand bateau », a-t-elle lancé à la ministre de la Famille. Suzanne Roy a été inspirée : le lendemain, quand Mme Maccarone est revenue à la charge, la ministre de la Famille a brandi un tableau montrant le nombre de places non subventionnées converties sous le gouvernement libéral. « Je pense que Julie Masse dirait : c’est zéro ! »
La loi Françoise David dérange Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, ARCHIVES LA PRESSE
Le chef du Parti québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon
Paul St-Pierre Plamondon n’aime pas l’appellation « loi Françoise David ». « La loi ne s’appelle pas la loi Françoise David. […] Is there a Véronique Hivon law regarding end of life? Is there a Pauline Marois law? “, he said Tuesday at a press briefing. The PQ leader believes that this is “marketing” on the part of Québec solidaire, which is doing its “self-promotion”, but that journalists should not rename the laws in this way, “especially since Québec solidaire was not not in power.” However, it is extremely rare for an opposition project to be adopted by the government, as was the case in 2016. At that time, the law, supported by Françoise David, indicated that an elder over 70 years old with a very low income and who has lived in their home for more than 10 years could not be evicted. On Thursday, the FADOQ Network, which represents 550,000 members and which is the largest seniors’ organization in Canada, also called for “the extension of the Françoise David law” to 65 years old.
Federal budget: appetizer
PHOTO JENNIFER GAUTHIER, REUTERS
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland
To great ills, great remedies. Manhandled by Pierre Poilievre and his troops in voting intentions, Justin Trudeau and his ministers are trying a new formula: instead of the traditional after-sales service for the federal budget being provided, it was decided to provide pre-sales service. Spoiler: millennials and generation Z, among whom Pierre Poilievre’s message resonates, will be at the heart of the concerns in the document that the Minister of Finance, Chrystia Freeland, will present on April 16. The former journalist “self-scooped” this week during the kickoff of a pre-budget tour which took place across the country, and which will continue next week, while the House of Commons takes a break .
Resistance 2.0
Scott Moe, Blaine Higgs, Danielle Smith: the premiers of Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Alberta all testified by videoconference before a committee of the House of Commons, Wednesday and Thursday, in order to fight the rise in prices of the ton of carbon, which will increase from $65 to $80 on 1er april. In all, seven provincial premiers, including Liberal Andrew Furey (Newfoundland and Labrador), asked Justin Trudeau to renounce this increase, which the main person concerned brushed aside, going so far as to to accuse his counterparts of lying. The faces of “The Resistance” who were on the front page of the magazine Maclean’s in 2018 have all changed, except one (Scott Moe), but the objective is the same: to bring down carbon pricing in flames – sorry, the Canadian carbon rebate, as the Trudeau government renamed it, aware of the need to do a little education to explain this policy.
IMAGE TAKEN FROM MACLEAN’S SITE
The cover of Maclean’s from December 2018. We see Doug Ford, Brian Pallister, Andrew Scheer, Jason Kenney and Scott Moe.
Obama and Greta, persona non grata in the countryside
One name has often come up in the numerous complaints related to foreign interference filed in the context of the 2019 and 2021 elections: Barack Obama. The messages of support published by the former President of the United States on – than with the director general of elections, Stéphane Perrault. “There was such a large volume that we asked [aux employés du Commissariat] if they wanted to see them, and I think they said no, because they received as many at home, or more,” the latter told the Commission on Foreign Interference, which resumed its work this week. But in this case as in that of the presence in Canada of the Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, in 2019, these interventions which can be “perceived by Canadians as injustices to our electoral system […] are not illegal”, unless there is financial compensation, added the witness.