The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) had spent most of its first year in power eliminating organizations that could constitute checks and balances that could oppose the views of the government.
This is how the Régie de l’énergie was literally emasculated by giving back to Hydro-Québec and the government the task of setting electricity rates. We had also abolished the school boards, a last remnant of the DNA of the ADQ, which had made it its hobbyhorse, citing the low rate of participation in school elections.
In the interview he gave to The Press last week, Prime Minister Legault said he was going to draw on his “reserve of courage” to improve the efficiency of the state. It is always efficiency that is invoked when a government wants to justify a coup.
In the case of the education network, this would mean that the government would give itself full powers to choose and dismiss the directors general of school service centres. Mr. Legault does not even hide it. “There are still powers to be sought in order to have, among other things, more information,” he told our colleagues last Friday.
“There are things that are done [par les directeurs généraux] with the agreement of the board of directors, which do not necessarily suit us,” added the Premier to make it clear that the only thing that matters is that the school service centers do what they are told. And too bad for the promised autonomy.
He was referring to the Roberval school service center, which closed 4-year-old kindergarten classes for lack of staff.
It’s a bit ironic though. The entire education community had warned the government that the 4-year-old kindergarten project was the very example of a false good idea. Because of the lack of staff and premises, it was unrealistic to think that we could create a network of 4-year-old kindergartens and it was more important to complete the network of early childhood centres. At the time, Mr. Legault did not care.
A few days ago, the Minister of Education, Bernard Drainville, had to recognize that he could not fulfill the promise of 2,600 kindergarten classes by 2025-2026 and he postponed everything to 2029-2030.
But if a director general of a school service center recognizes the same problem and acts accordingly, this would be, according to the Prime Minister, a reason to dismiss him.
In short, a reform, which was presented as an example of decentralization and a desire to bring power back to parents and communities, is being transformed to become the exact opposite.
There is in all this attitude an issue of good governance.
We risk ending up with managers who no longer dare to give the government a precise idea of what is happening on the ground. No one wants to be the one reporting bad news to the minister or prime minister, so silence is likely to become the norm rather than transparency.
That is what comes with the power to fire that the Prime Minister holds so dear.
In health, the same conversion to centralization is notable. In fact, the Legault government is in the process of consolidating and completing the much-maligned reform of former minister Gaétan Barrette.
It should be remembered that the CAQ, when it was in opposition, had first supported the Barrette reform and then dissociated itself from it. “With the bill, we centralize more powers in the hands of the minister, he decides everything,” said health critic François Paradis.
The question now is whether the CAQ government will go through with its current intentions. If there is one art that this government has learned well, it is to change course in the face of bad polls.
After all, is it not this government that has established the notion of social acceptability as a dogma, a notion that is not based on any clear objective criteria, except to allow it to back off as soon as the water gets too hot?
Currently, the tone of the government is rather belligerent. He wants to speak loudly to demand more flexibility from the unions and give himself more control on the employer side in the education and health networks. And fewer and fewer people are fooled by the double talk that makes people try to increase their powers under the guise of a desire for decentralization.
Except that this is not the first time that a government has spoken loudly at the start of a round of negotiations only to realize that the popular support it thought it had is no longer so solid when things turn sour. ‘confrontation.
With this government especially, it is therefore better to wait for the next poll.