Abandonment of the compulsory mask and the vaccine passport, adoption of around twenty bills in the National Assembly, electoral campaign: in Quebec, the year 2022 took place under the sign of a return to normal after the crisis of COVID-19. Overview in five stages.
The pandemic disappears from the radar
The year had barely begun when the news broke. On January 10, after two years of pandemic management, Horacio Arruda bowed out. “The recent comments made on the credibility of our opinions and on our scientific rigor undoubtedly cause a certain erosion of the support of the population,” he wrote in a letter sent to the Prime Minister. “In such a context, I consider it appropriate to offer you the possibility of replacing me,” added the resigning national director of public health. Changing of the guard. Luc Boileau took the reins of the general direction of public health, where he led the work of the health authorities to eliminate the obligation to present a vaccine passport, in March, then that of wearing a mask, in May. 1er June, the Quebec government got rid of most of its extraordinary powers by ending the state of health emergency. COVID-19 is still around, but like the mandatory mask, it has all but disappeared from public discourse. More than 5,500 Quebecers have lost their lives to the disease in 2022, including nearly 1,800 since the end of the state of emergency.
Quebec is carrying out a vast reform of “Bill 101”
After reviewing the immigration system, rethinking school governance and passing its contested law on the secularism of the state, the CAQ government wanted to strengthen the Charter of the French language, which has been “butchered by the courts” since its adoption in 1977, according to François Legault. After a year of consultations and deliberations, the National Assembly adopted on May 24, 2022 Bill 96 “on the official and common language of Quebec, French”. This touches on everything. It modifies public postings to oblige the use of French in a “clearly predominant” way, asks students in the English-speaking college network to take courses taught in French (or “in” French for English-speaking rights holders), creates the organization Francisation Québec and puts an end to all communication from the State in a language other than French six months after the arrival of an immigrant, among other things. The important reform was barely adopted when it was challenged in court. In August, a Quebec Superior Court judge suspended two sections of the law pending a trial on the merits. The case is expected to be heard in 2023.
Caquiste Quebec
The Caquiste caravan took a bumpy road during the 36 days of the election campaign. From day one, the leader of the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ), François Legault, referred to his opponent Dominique Anglade by calling her “this lady”. Asked about the third Quebec-Lévis link, its candidate Bernard Drainville famously said: “let go of me with the GHGs [gaz à effets de serre]. “At the end of the first leaders’ debate, the Prime Minister and candidate for his own succession admitted to having found the exercise “difficult”. He said in the week before the vote that it “would be a bit suicidal to go and raise” the immigration thresholds. Despite everything, a few days before the election, the CAQ was in a relatively good position in the polls – the latest analysis by the firm Léger granted 38% of voting intentions to the Legault team. The election results proved the pollster right. On October 3, 2022, François Legault’s party won 90 seats, 15 more than when the 42e legislature. Above all, it became the fourth largest government in the history of Quebec. With 89 colleagues to choose from, the Prime Minister formed on October 20 a Council of Ministers of 30 elected officials. Among these, Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon, who, in addition to being reappointed to the Economy, inherited Energy and took the helm of a “superministry”. Then the Nord-Côtière Kateri Champagne Jourdain, new Minister of Employment, who became the first Aboriginal to sit around this coveted table.
Dominique Anglade lowers flag
Despite historically low results in the October 3 elections – 14.4% of the vote – Dominique Anglade clung on. The Liberal Party of Quebec (PLQ) had received a “clear message”, she proclaimed: “Quebecers […] are asking us to be the official opposition in Quebec. However, in the weeks following the re-election of the CAQ, the tiles piled up. Behind closed doors – and less closed – former elected members of the political party demanded his departure. Then, a few weeks before the start of parliament, the Liberal leader excluded MP Marie-Claude Nichols from her caucus, on the pretext that she had not accepted the file entrusted to her in the shadow cabinet. Critics arose. Pressurization, Mme Anglade admitted to having gone “too far” and invited her colleague to rejoin the team. But the damage was done. Under the weight of “internal intrigues”, she submitted her resignation on November 7.
The death of the oath to the king
Quebec elected officials had tried in the past to get rid of it, without success. So much so that in the week of October 17, 2022, they were forced to take turns swearing in King Charles III to sit. Those of the CAQ and the PLQ did so without complaining too much. “It does not please us more than anyone,” noted the CAQ parliamentary leader, Simon Jolin-Barrette. Disheartened, the Parti Québécois deputies refused. A question of “principle”, according to chef Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. The party tried by all means to break the impasse: would a motion be enough to allow its elected officials to sit? Nothing worked. 1er December 2022, they stumbled upon the doors of the Blue Salon after refusing to swear allegiance to the Crown. However, the government tabled a bill in the second week of work to put an end to the oath. Its rapid adoption – the law came into force on December 9 – will allow elected members of the PQ to sit as soon as parliamentary work resumes at the end of January.