It is very good to want to affirm the Quebec difference, but a practice is not necessarily bad simply because it is current in the rest of Canada.
We sometimes have the unfortunate impression that the Legault government is making totally inept decisions with the sole aim of demonstrating its autonomy in areas where Ottawa leaves it perfectly free to go against the public interest. Its obstinacy in maintaining the limit of the authorized alcohol level while driving at 0.08, while all Canadian provinces have lowered it for decades to 0.05 – and even to 0.04 in Saskatchewan – seems to be a matter of this spirit of contradiction for which the population does not have to pay the price.
No one will be surprised that restaurant owners objected, but they certainly did everywhere else. There are also areas there where it is not possible to use public transportation or take a taxi home. However, the governments have not crashed and there are still excellent restaurants there.
We could still invoke the legendary Anglo-Saxon puritanism if the vast majority of European countries had not also adopted the 0.05 standard. Including France and Italy, just as Latin as us, and where we don’t deprive ourselves of good food.
It is true that the limit of 0.08 remains the rule in the United States, but can anyone seriously claim that our neighbors to the South are the example to follow when it comes to safety?
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It is curious that Quebec is, with the Yukon, the most permissive in Canada regarding alcohol consumption, while it is the most severe regarding the age of cannabis consumption. While the other provinces have set it at 18 or 19 years, the Legault government imposed a minimum age of 21 from the start.
An investigation of Duty revealed this week the content of an opinion from the Société de l’assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ) which is clearly in favor of lowering the level of alcohol allowed while driving, as had already been recommended by the Coroner’s Office and the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec.
While it persists in rejecting the recommendations of experts on alcohol, the Legault government nevertheless said it relies on science, in particular on the opinions of the Federation of Specialist Physicians and the Association of Psychiatrists of Quebec , to justify its decision in the case of cannabis.
With the exception of Éduc’alcool, which seems to seek to protect its business rather than the population, experts are unanimous in favoring the limit of 0.05. The precautionary principle which prevailed in the first case no longer holds in the second.
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Mme Guilbault listed with his trademark volubility all the measures his government has taken to combat impaired driving. We can only rejoice, but what harm would there be in adding the belt to the suspenders? Wherever the limit has been lowered, there has been a drop in the number of deaths.
Even in politics, bad faith should have a limit. For days, Mme Guilbault assured that he had never seen or even heard of the SAAQ’s opinion, of which the liberal opposition had only been able to obtain a redacted copy until Duty get your hands on it. The minister was no more inclined to take note of it than Mr. Legault in the case of legal opinions on the forced displacement of asylum seekers.
This all makes no sense. Mme Guilbault is responsible for the SAAQ and the road safety issue, but it’s as if that doesn’t concern her. We would not have expected to see her imitate her colleague from Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire, who had completely washed his hands of the SAAQclic system fiasco.
The spirit of contradiction is like second nature to her. The studies of his own ministry, as well as of the Caisse de dépôt, have demonstrated the uselessness of the third link, but nothing works: the project always rises from its ashes, like a phoenix.
To hear Mme Guilbault this week, one wondered if she had not imagined a variation of the little play on words in which she had indulged last year during the study of the appropriations of her ministry, which would now consist of using the the most convoluted expressions possible.
Thus, the international call for interest that the government is preparing to launch aims to develop a “preliminary reference concept” which will, however, provide neither route nor budget. On the other hand, it will allow the mirage to be preserved until the next election. It must be admitted that it was quite “croquignolesque”.