Quebec was governed for several years by a cohort of doctors: Doctor Yves Bolduc, Doctor Gaétan Barrette, Doctor Philippe Couillard, Doctor Roberto Iglesias, secretary general of the Couillard government. We see what happened: Quebec continues to recover from a disease that has destroyed almost everything in its path and which has been called austerity.
We are now under the control of accountants, whom Lysiane Gagnon had called at the time the Merveilleux monde des hommes (MMA): the chief accountant, François Legault, the accountant at Health and Social Services, Christian Dubé, the accountant to Economy, Pierre Fitzgibbon.
There were plenty of clues, but the cat was finally out of the bag. In The Press of December 8, we could read this: “But for the Prime Minister, it is essential to relax collective agreements to give new powers to managers in the health and education networks. Managers who, moreover, become more accountable and will have to “deliver results” under the Dubé and Drainville reforms, he argued. “This is how it works in the private sector, and this is how it should work in the public sector,” proclaimed the Prime Minister in his profession of faith. »
He seems on a mission and, as he knows his future is behind him, he delivers the order to his sponsors
Minister Dubé just had his Bill 15 adopted last Saturday, under a gag order. An incredible centralization operation which will be led by an agency, Santé Québec. The minister has already indicated his colors: Santé Québec will be managed by “ top guns » from the private sector, who will be paid salaries that will far exceed what is paid in the public sector, he said.
So here we are, back 37 years, when another accountant, Paul Gobeil, minister in the second government of Robert Bourassa, argued, in 1986, that it was necessary to “run” the State like a business », thus opening the door to what was then called the Provigo State, the company from which this accountant came, instead of the welfare state.
Gobeil advocated the abolition of several administrative bodies, such as the Régie du logement, the Office of public hearings on the environment (BAPE) and the Commission for the protection of agricultural land. If he had followed up on his minister’s report, Robert Bourassa would have privatized Radio-Québec. In the health sector, he would have ceded small or medium-sized hospitals to private interests. He would also have raised university tuition fees, increased teachers’ workloads and financed schools with vouchers, which would have allowed parents to choose between public and private schools.
Fortunately for Quebec and its institutions, Robert Bourassa had a certain sense of the State, which led him to shelve this enterprise of dismantling the Quebec state. And Paul Gobeil returned to the private sector, this time at Metro…
With the Legault government, the BAPE has not been abolished. But the battery project in Montérégie was hidden from his view. Pierre Fitzgibbon has taken over from Paul Gobeil! He also “runs” the affairs of the state to you like a business, having accumulated three ethics breaches in his file, as noted by the Ethics Commissioner, Ariane Mignolet.
It’s as if the Prime Minister had said to him: “Go ahead, Pierre!” Have fun ! » Except that the candy he has in his hands is the taxpayers’ taxes.
This is the same minister who, ignoring the recommendations made to him, appointed another accountant to Investissement Québec, who pockets more than a million dollars per year, double that of his predecessor.
In 2015, taking up a cry from the heart of the poet Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, “We are not accountants!” »the writer Yvon Rivard published in The duty a powerful text: “Learn to count differently”. “We believe that Quebec can become a just, different and united country if it resists the slogans, the hollow words behind which all the accountants hide who claim to get us out of the economic and social crisis that they created and which serves well; we believe that, every time we hear the words “excellence”, “competitiveness”, “continuous growth”, “rule of law”, “globalization”, “budget balance”, “silent majority”, we must cover our ears or, better, ask yourself: who speaks like this and for whom? Who invites us to slash social programs, to work more, to do our “fair share”? For whom do all those who affirm that the State must submit to credit ratings, to the laws of the market, to the rationalization of production? »
If we are not accountants, it is clear that, unfortunately, the spirit of geometry inhabits these accountants who are today in charge of the State!