When he arrived at the CAQ caucus on Wednesday, Prime Minister Legault spoke like a hockey coach whose team is going through a bad patch. His government must return to the “basic game”.
The government must refocus on its five priorities, which are always the same, remain disciplined and avoid distractions, he explained. In hockey language, we also say to “keep it simple”. Martin St-Louis would say that everyone should not play their gamebut the game.
Mr. Legault could have added that we must avoid unprovoked errors, these famous “turnovers” which give a coach nightmares, when a player hands the puck to the opponent in the “pay zone” while a play less risky was entirely possible.
Of course, we cannot predict everything. The best plans must be constantly adapted to the circumstances, and a government is often forced to react on the fly. The third link fiasco, the extravagant increase in MP salaries or even the subsidy to the Los Angeles Kings were not, however, the result of rash decisions taken in an emergency. They were considered for a long time and the warning signs were knowingly ignored. Scattering should not be confused with lack of judgment.
Party discipline also has its limits. It is certainly annoying for a head of government to see deputies bursting into lamentations in the public square. Politics is a team sport that requires solidarity, but we cannot expect an elected official to persist in pretending that everything is going well while his voters are on the verge of revolt. They do not believe in electing a deputy to make up the numbers, but to express their opinion, out loud if necessary. Otherwise, they will choose another one.
Is the problem really that the Legault government has not been sufficiently focused on its priorities, or rather that its efforts are not yielding the hoped-for results? The wait in the emergency room has increased again, as has the number of those waiting for surgery. There are still too many classes without teachers and dilapidated schools.
However, Christian Dubé and Bernard Drainville spent the year laying the foundations for what were presented as major reforms to the health and education networks, not to mention the fires they had to put out.
The reorganization of work in hospitals and schools was at the heart of negotiations in the public sector. Given the shortage of nurses and teachers, which remains the root of the problem, it is difficult to see what more the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, could have done.
The reluctance of teachers to volunteer to participate in the plan announced by Mr. Drainville to make up for the delay caused by the strike does not bode well. Clearly, they did not return to work with great enthusiasm, as evidenced by the close results of the votes on the agreements negotiated in December. And there is no guarantee that nurses will be more excited about the regulation that will eventually come about.
We can very well contest Pierre Fitzgibbon’s approach to economic (or energy) development, but it is difficult to accuse the government of having moved away from the priority that Mr. Legault has always given it. On the contrary, we could rather blame him for being ready to sacrifice everything to him.
The Prime Minister intends to be less visible in the future, as if he himself were a distraction. It is true that some of his statements in the last weeks of 2023 were not the best informed, but there are limits to hiding the head of government. Empowering the team is easier said than done.
Mr. Legault’s omnipresence has been the key to the success of the CAQ since its creation. His spontaneity and even his clumsiness followed by excuses have long contributed to the attachment that Quebecers felt for him. They have become a cause of annoyance. This is called the attrition of power. No one can escape it, at least in a democracy.
The population becomes less tolerant towards a government of which it is beginning to tire, especially when it sees an alternative, which was not the case during the first mandate of the CAQ. Mistakes that were once brushed aside may suddenly seem less benign.
The deputy for Rousseau, Louis-Charles Thouin, had already been temporarily excluded from the Caucus caucus in 2021, when he was the subject of investigations by the Ethics Commissioner and UPAC due to allegations of conflict of interests. After his colleague from Chauveau, Sylvain Lévesque, who is already the subject of an investigation, Mr. Thouin also allegedly requested contributions to the CAQ fund in exchange for a meeting with a member of the government, this time the Minister of Transport, Geneviève Guilbault.
The rules for financing political parties have been significantly tightened since the Charbonneau commission, but a government has every interest in showing its credentials when voters are only asking to find things to criticize it for.