The Parti Québécois rejected Thursday a second government proposal to extend the session and pass Bill 15 next week, seeing it as a second “disguised gag order” from the government.
The leader of the government, Simon Jolin-Barrette, proposed Thursday to add to his previous offer one more day (Thursday the 14th) to study the bill on the Santé Québec agency, with the aim of adopting it on next day.
On Wednesday, he proposed devoting the days of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to it with a view to adoption on Thursday. But the PQ refused because the government demanded adoption on Thursday whatever happened. It was, according to its leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, a “disguised gag order”.
In response to the new offer, the reaction was the same. “It’s a variation on the same theme. We are extending the disguised gag order for one day,” argued PQ health spokesperson Joël Arseneau. “We refuse the imposition of a deadline by the government, under threat of being gagged. »
The parliamentary session should normally end this Friday, December 8 and elected officials are far from having finished studying Bill 15 on health. However, the Legault government absolutely wants to have it adopted before the break.
Therefore, two options are available to him: a gag order or the extension of the work beyond Friday. But he needs the consent of the oppositions to extend the parliamentary session. Hence the ongoing negotiations.
Conditions for the adoption of Bill 31
In the absence of an agreement, attacks multiply between the CAQ and the PQ. On the
The latter, for his part, aroused the ire of his opponents Thursday morning by declaring that the CAQ wanted to have Bill 15 adopted in 2023 because the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, was “tired”.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary committee on Bill 15 continues its work Thursday afternoon. Same thing for Bill 31 on housing.
We still do not know whether the latter can be adopted by the end of the day Friday, since the CAQ rejected the conditions submitted by Québec solidaire to modify the parliamentary schedule.
The PQ also submitted, in turn, on Thursday, its conditions for the adoption of this same bill. He asks the Minister of Housing, France-Élaine Duranceau, to attenuate the articles on the transfer of leases by only allowing owners to slow them down when the vacancy rate in the sector is above 3%.
Remember that unless there is an agreement with the oppositions, the government will not have time to pass Bill 31 before the end of the parliamentary session tomorrow, unless it imposes a gag order.