Despite his drop in voting intentions, François Legault can consider himself lucky, very lucky.
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Unlike Justin Trudeau, he does not have to face Pierre Poilievre as leader of the official opposition.
Anyone who likes to repeat that “Canada is broken” would have no difficulty applying the same formula to Quebec.
Because François Legault may well be sorry for having lacked discipline or for having allowed himself to be distracted, the problem is much deeper.
He was careful not to say that Quebec is broken, but it’s just like that.
“That’s why we were elected, to change what doesn’t work,” he pleads in his brand new ad.
Money, more money
To convince us that it is seriously tackling the heart of the problem, the government repeats that no other government has reinvested more in public services.
So much so that the Minister of Finance announced a higher deficit than expected due to the 6% salary increase granted to public sector employees in 2023.
- Listen to the Latraverse-Bock-Côté meeting with Emmanuelle Latraverse via QUB :
Moreover, we will have to wait for the budget to see if it will also have to postpone the budget balance.
For his part, Bernard Drainville insists that the CAQ has reinvested $1 billion per year in education.
Then, Christian Dubé carries the Health network on the shoulders of his good faith and a bottomless pit of $60 billion per year.
And yet…
Too many Quebecers believe that you have to win at 6/49 to see a doctor within a reasonable time without experiencing the horror of an emergency.
Open lines are flooded with stories of patients who can’t wait any longer for surgery.
Teachers are deserting the profession. Parents invent their teenager’s passion for baking or swimming to prevent them from ending up in regular public secondary school.
Companies spend tens of thousands of dollars bringing workers from Africa.
And let’s not even talk about all those who are still locked up in the SAAQ Madhouse and its illustrious IT reform.
The essential
François Legault is right to want to return to his basic game.
Quebecers are not that demanding.
Screenshots TVA Nouvelles.
They just ask to stop being held hostage between the bureaucracy, the unions and other corporate interests.
They just ask that the State, financed by their taxes, work for them.
And yet…
It will take battles and confrontations.
This will require tedious meetings with different actors in this infernal machine.
It will require indignant reproaches from an opposition which has the nice game of criticizing without having to settle.
It will take courage to persevere without guarantee of success.
After the touted promises comes the execution which is not. On the contrary, it is ungrateful, laborious, sometimes discouraging.
And the worst part of all this is that the fruits of all this adversity will perhaps be reaped by a political opponent during a future mandate.
But this is the price to pay for the privilege of governing.