The government wants to create the Health Quebec agency to make bureaucracy, centralize and stay away from controversies, denounced the opposition to the National Assembly in a new salvo of criticism, Thursday.
“One wonders what Minister Dubé will be used for after the adoption of this bill,” argued the interim leader of the Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ), Marc Tanguay.
“If we say that Pierre Fitzgibbon is a superminister, we will realize that after […] this reform […] we will have a mini-Minister of Health. »
Bill 15, tabled on Wednesday, aims to entrust the future agency (and its CEO) with responsibility for all day-to-day management of the health system. The ministry would only be in charge of orientations.
This makes the Liberals say that the agency is a “shield” to which the government can resort to stop being “accountable” when health services are deficient.
Québec solidaire sees it rather as “a trip of bureaucrats”. “This reform is not a reform for patients, it is a reform by and for bureaucrats,” argued party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
Not enough time to study it
Like the PLQ, the left party believes that Health Quebec will “allow the government to rid itself of responsibility” and “undermine what is called ministerial responsibility”, to use the words of the deputy for Rosemont Vincent Marissal. .
The Parti Québécois, for its part, is questioning the planned addition of many executives to the system. “This is the biggest centralization project of the health system that we have ever experienced,” said MP Joël Arseneau.
The elected representative from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine also does not see how Parliament will be able to study it in full by the end of the session, in June. With over a thousand clauses, Bill 15 is considered one of the largest to have been introduced in Parliament.
The government, for its part, recalls that experts like Michel Clair and Claude Castonguay recommended the creation of an agency. “We have the political courage to do that,” boasted Health Minister Christian Dubé. The agency is “not at all”, a shield in terms of accountability, he also defended himself. Its leader, François Legault, for his part, criticizes the opposition and the unions for “defending the status quo”.