We haven’t talked enough about it

Six topics that deserved more media attention

Stephanie Grammond
Press

Alexandre sirois
Press

Nathalie Collard
Press

Opioid overdoses

It is the epidemic hidden by the pandemic. For the first six months of the year, Quebec recorded 580 emergency room visits for opioid poisoning. The fatal overdoses claimed 212 lives – despite the growing use of the life-saving drug naloxone. These figures are not reported every day by authorities and the media like those of COVID-19. But they bear witness to a tragedy whose causes are complex and which will not disappear with a vaccine. A first step would be to decriminalize drugs to stop seeing victims as criminals.

Philippe Mercury

Inequalities and COVID-19

We have all suffered from COVID-19 this year. But those who live in difficult socio-economic conditions have suffered more than others. In Montreal, people die twice as many from the disease in very underprivileged neighborhoods than in affluent areas (77 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to 33). Confinement, curfews and teleworking were experienced more harshly by families who cram into a four-and-a-half without an internet connection than by those who enjoy a large house with a yard. Government support helped the portfolio, but psychological distress hit the already fragile people hard, many of them children.

Philippe Mercury

Federal debt

Suddenly, the pandemic wiped out 20 years of efforts to consolidate Canada’s public finances: debt as a proportion of the size of the economy jumped from 30% to 48%. Just because Canada has the best debt-to-GDP ratio of the G7 countries doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it. Yet in the last election, politicians put the issue under the rug, throwing billions of dollars in new promises. As if the economy lived in zero gravity! But with the expected rise in interest rates, the debt burden will be felt.

Stephanie Grammond

The voting method

For a good half-dozen years, politicians have been big talkers, but little doers when it comes to the voting system. Both in Quebec City and in Ottawa. The Legault government, however, gave the impression that it would not drop its promise to reform the voting system, unlike that of Justin Trudeau a few years ago. But the ax fell on December 17, without fanfare. “It is clearly not a priority for Quebeckers, after all that we have just been through”, some pretext in Quebec. Clearly, the pandemic has a broad back …

Alexandre sirois

The dropout

We can never talk enough about dropping out and the graduation rate in Quebec, at least as long as the situation remains critical. It is all the more important to relaunch our discussions on this subject since the pandemic has seriously affected our young people. Preliminary data seems to show that this is not the disaster we feared in terms of student success and graduation rates. An increase in the number of dropouts was, however, reported by several school service centers. Will the measures implemented by Quebec be sufficient to limit the damage? This file cannot be anything other than a priority.

Alexandre sirois

Foreign workers

In 2019, approximately 4,700 Canadian farm businesses used 54,000 temporary foreign workers. It is often said that these workers – who leave their families behind to come and earn money here – kill the job that few people agree to do: hard manual labor and, above all, poor living conditions. Canada has nothing to be proud of in this area. Auditor General Karen Hogan has been very harsh on the Trudeau government, accusing her of not having done the necessary checks to ensure that occupational health and safety rules are respected in times of COVID -19. Shameful.

Nathalie Collard