On May 18, 2012, in the heart of a social crisis launched by a widespread student strike movement, the liberal government of Jean Charest adopted the famous law 78 which notably restricted, in a very significant way, the right to demonstrate in Quebec and attempted to to break the student strike by forcing CEGEPs and universities to give courses at all costs. Widely denounced by a wide range of public institutions and Quebec political actors, the decision to adopt Bill 78 will play a major role in the defeat of the Liberal Party during the 2012 general election.
Deeply outraged, we consider that the manner in which the government of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) successively adopted Bills 23 (on education) and 15 (on health), against a backdrop of deficient management of the historic strike of public sector workers (including teachers and members of the healthcare staff), has everything to become “law 78 of the CAQ”.
A government allergic to ccounter-powers
We must first remember that the government of François Legault, since its election in 2018, has multiplied the ways of circumventing democratic counter-powers or, outright, of attacking them head-on. Let us cite in particular:
- the light reactions – to say the least – of members of the government being investigated or reprimanded by the Ethics Commissioner of the National Assembly;
- the wall-to-wall recourse to provisions derogating from the rights and freedoms of the person within the Law on State Secularism (PL 21) and the Act respecting the official and common language of Quebec, French (PL 96);
- the decision to maintain the state of health emergency to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic continuously for a period of more than two years (from March 13, 2020 to March 1er June 2022);
- the frenetic pace of adoption of important bills under gag order during the nine months preceding the outbreak of the state of emergency (secularism – PL 21, abolition of school boards – PL 40, immigration reform – PL 9 and electricity rates – PL 34).
But beyond these concrete acts of circumvention or weakening of Quebec’s institutional counter-powers, we must also add the repeated comments from members of the government concerning the uselessness of parliamentary debates in the context where the Assembly sits national, a majority government. Without repeating the substance, we could validly summarize these government comments with a pastiche of Yvon Deschamps’ famous monologue on the unions: “what are the debates?” “, in any case, the decision will be made in the Prime Minister’s office.
An unacceptable sayner of idiots
We have heard and read it a lot in recent years: the problems that prevent workers in our public education and health establishments from doing their work – or even simply from remaining within these same establishments – are also numerous. important and require the implementation of concrete solutions which, to succeed, must have been the subject of serious and collective reflection. These reflections are precisely those which take place within the framework of parliamentary work, once a bill has been tabled and before its adoption.
Far from being a “waste of time” which separates the tabling of a bill from its inevitable adoption by a majority government, this period of debate and consultation should allow this same government to ensure that its initial bill is not has no blind spots or, at a minimum, brings more benefits than it causes problems.
To do this, it calls on various stakeholders, organizations and people likely to shed light on the said bill to ensure that the rules to be adopted are best suited to meet the needs, as glaring as they are urgent, of those who hold our public institutions at arm’s length.
PHOTO JACQUES BOISSINOT, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVES
The Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, shortly after the adoption on December 7 of Bill 23, which reforms school governance.
Although the government has lent itself to this parliamentary game in recent months, the speakers who contributed to the work on PL 23 and PL 15 cannot feel other than as if they had been invited to a dinner of idiots. : PL 23 was adopted, to the joy and pride of the CAQ deputies, while the government dismissed out of hand all the severe and almost unanimous criticism of which it was the subject; PL 15 was adopted, under gag order, to the laughter of the CAQ deputies, while more than 300 associations and organizations from the community, union and medical circles denounced again this week the obvious absence of consensus around this reform. All this, without there being any urgency to see the new structures imagined by the government come into being.
An arrogance that does notenough more
In recent months, the Legault government has largely fueled the cynicism of Quebecers with broken promises (hello, third link), questionable decisions (hello, Los Angeles Kings) and clumsy statements showing its disconnection with the population.
While a very large proportion of the population supports the 600,000 workers who are leading a historic strike to defend public services, the arrogance shown by the CAQ government in the process of adopting these major network reforms of education and health is likely to lead to its downfall.
Mr. Legault, the Quebec people still believe in democracy and it, no offense, does not come down to the simple fact of voting once every four years.