(Quebec) The government’s parliamentary leader, Simon Jolin-Barrette, made a counter-offer to the opposition parties so that the detailed study of Bill 15 will be extended for four days next week.
His last offer, which had been rejected by the Parti Québécois (PQ), consisted of adding three days of study in committee, namely next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, for adoption of the bill on Thursday, December 14.
Mr. Jolin-Barrette proposes this time to conclude the work and adopt the voluminous legislative document on Friday, December 15. These are exceptional negotiations, since the parliamentary session ends this Friday.
Earlier in the morning, the opposition parties had stressed that there remained a lot of work to be done in order to improve Bill 15, which would notably create the Santé Québec agency and merge union accreditations.
Bundles of amendments have also been tabled by the government in recent days.
If elected officials rush the adoption of Bill 15, it risks being riddled with errors, warned Québec Solidaire (QS) MP Guillaume Cliche-Rivard at a press briefing on Thursday.
The PQ health spokesperson, Joël Arseneau, suggested that the MPs did not have to accommodate a Minister of Health in a hurry to adopt his reform because he was “tired”.
If the opposition rejects Mr. Jolin-Barrette’s new scenario, the government could impose a gag order on Friday.