Allow me to come back to the recent appointment of Geneviève Biron as head of Santé Québec. The stakes are too high to turn the page so quickly. I salute all of Minister Christian Dubé’s efforts to improve our health system. His professional integrity is unassailable. He did not hesitate to add an executive vice-president from the health system to Geneviève Biron, which was not initially planned. Geneviève Biron is paid a salary higher than that of Michael Sabia, CEO of Hydro-Québec, whose track record, in all objectivity, is much more impressive. We pay Geneviève Biron a bonus the first year, while we usually wait for results to be achieved before acting in this way. We are reducing the term of his employment contract from five to three years, at the request of Geneviève Biron, we read in an interview. Very good. We didn’t skimp. After all, Geneviève Biron, now at the head of more than 300,000 employees, must reorganize our health system and increase its efficiency. Perhaps she will demonstrate that she is underpaid. That would be excellent news.
That said, taxpayers have a right to know what progress to expect over the next three years. At a press conference two weeks ago, Geneviève Biron was cautious, explaining that her priority was to build her team. A journalist asked him, in vain, to name a goal to achieve by the end of his mandate. We understand that Geneviève Biron did not benefit from all the supervision necessary for such a public exercise. And it will take a few years before we can measure the progress of Santé Québec based on usual statistics (e.g.: number of pending surgical procedures, waiting times in emergency rooms, etc.). Nevertheless, given the importance of the mission entrusted to Geneviève Biron, the government has surely agreed with her on key steps to be taken over the next three years, in terms of reorganization and restructuring of our health system. We have certainly planned some performance indicators on this subject. The discussions must have been very interesting. I invite Minister Dubé and/or Geneviève Biron to share these performance indicators with us, in sufficient detail, without exaggeration, so that we can better appreciate the anticipated progress of our new Agency. This information is much more relevant than the annual salary of the new president. This transparency would help strengthen the confidence of Quebecers in the future of Santé Québec.
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