Latest news with #CoalitionAvenirQuébec
Montreal Gazette
3 days ago
- Politics
- Montreal Gazette
Letters: Health care isn't an assembly line
I think we should be very concerned that Bill 106 proposes to link up to 25 per cent of a doctor's pay to various performance objectives. As a student, I worked on an engine assembly line. The salary was indirectly tied to the number of engines produced. That measure seems reasonable for industrial production. However, I become nervous as a patient when a doctor, in analyzing our health issues, is pressured by performance objectives. Humans are different, and symptoms and conditions are not the same for all. Our daughter graduated almost 10 years ago as a doctor specializing in anesthesiology. Quebec had no residency available for her, but she was offered one in Alberta. She preferred to work instead of waiting another year and hoping for an opening here, so off she went out west. She could come home to Quebec, but would earn less than in Alberta, be chided by politicians to work more, and have no work-life balance. Why should she consider it? Ragnar Radtke, Beaconsfield Democracy in decline under CAQ Re: ' Dubé's bill could push physicians out, doctors warn ' and ' French-language sign rules kick in June 1, and non-compliance penalties are stiff ' (The Gazette, May 28) I wonder just when it was that our governments — and the Coalition Avenir Québec in particular — decided it was their responsibility to arbitrarily impose legislation and regulations onto the backs of taxpayers they purportedly have been elected to represent and serve. Aren't our doctors and retailers significant enough stakeholders in society to be encouraged rather than punished by the province? Unfortunately, under Premier François Legault, Quebec seems to have adopted an Orwellian 'Big Brother knows best' authoritarian mode of government with its unilateral implementation of whatever the CAQ decides is in the best interest of Quebecers. As a result, democracy — famously defined by Abraham Lincoln as 'government of the people, by the people, for the people' — appears to be rapidly disappearing in Quebec. One can only hope that next year's provincial election may help remedy the situation. Eric Bender, Kirkland Grand adventure in art of listening Re: ' N.S. man embarks on 'listening tour' across Canada ' (The Gazette, May 20) As a former oncology social worker at a major teaching hospital in Montreal, I can well appreciate the value of compassionate listening and how it can bring untold benefits to the heart, mind and spirit of someone who desperately needs to be heard. The art of listening is a gift. Too often, people and patients who earnestly wish to express deeply held emotions are cut off by those being spoken to with the offer of deceptive comfort — 'don't worry, everything is going to be all right.' Retired social worker Paul Jenkinson has embarked upon a 'listening tour' across Canada. He creates a safe space and listens to those who need to speak their mind, providing a most meaningful example of catharsis. The Dalai Lama effectively sums up Jenkinson's 'grand adventure' with his quote: 'Love and kindness are not a luxury, but a source of health and happiness for others and ourselves.' Brahms E. Silver, Côte-St-Luc Submitting a letter to the editor Letters should be sent by email to letters@ We prioritize letters that respond to, or are inspired by, articles published by The Gazette. If you are responding to a specific article, let us know which one. Letters should be sent uniquely to us. The shorter they are — ideally, fewer than 200 words — the greater the chance of publication. Timing, clarity, factual accuracy and tone are all important, as is whether the writer has something new to add to the conversation. We reserve the right to edit and condense all letters. Care is taken to preserve the core of the writer's argument. Our policy is not to publish anonymous letters, those with pseudonyms or 'open letters' addressed to third parties. Letters are published with the author's full name and city or neighbourhood/borough of residence. Include a phone number and address to help verify identity; these will not be published. We will not indicate to you whether your letter will be published. If it has not been published within 10 days or so, it is not likely to be.
CTV News
4 days ago
- Business
- CTV News
Unions slam Quebec government for adopting law limiting strikes
Members of the FAE teachers union march to begin their strike, Thursday, Nov. 23, 2023 in Montreal. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press) Quebec's bill limiting the scope of strikes was adopted Thursday, and labour unions are calling it a 'dark day' for all workers. 'The premier and his labour minister have clearly failed to grasp the extent of the damage that this new legislation will cause,' said the heads of nine major unions in a news release. The Coalition Avenir Québec and the Liberals voted for the bill, while the Parti Québécois and Québec Solidaire voted against it. It passed with 94 votes. Labour Minister Jean Boulet said the bill intended to 'take into consideration the needs of the population' and said, 'whether it's a strike or lockout, it's important to find the right balance.' There were 759 work stoppages (90 per cent of which were strikes) in Quebec in 2024, the highest of all Canadian provinces. He said some strikes go on for 'very long periods of time' with 'many different damages.' Under the new law, arbitrators can determine the content of a collective agreement in order to end a labour dispute in certain cases. Workers must now maintain 'minimum services,' rather than 'essential services,' during a strike or lockout to ensure the 'well-being of the population' and avoid 'disproportionately affecting the social, economic or environmental security' of the population. The Alliance du personnel professionnel et technique de la santé et des services sociaux (APTS), Centrale des syndicats démocratiques (CSD), Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN), Centrale des syndicats du Québec (CSQ), Fédération Autonome de l'Enseignement (FAE), Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ), Syndicat de la fonction publique et parapublique du Québec (SFPQ) and Syndicat de professionnelles et professionnels du gouvernement du Québec (SPGQ) all came out against Bill 89. Minister turning 'everything upside down' The unions say there was already a 'fragile balance' between workers and employers. 'Trade unions cannot understand why Jean Boulet wanted to turn everything upside down, except to subject all employees to the whims of employers and to please employers and a cabinet with anti-union tendencies,' they said. 'The framework surrounding the exercise of the right to strike, which was limited overall, offered workers the opportunity to improve their conditions within clear guidelines. The minister seems to have found excuses to trample on their rights.' Québec Solidaire's Alexandre Leduc called the law 'discriminatory' and 'authoritarian,' saying it gives the Labour Minister too much power to break strikes. He sided with the unions, pointing out that there are already provisions protecting essential services when it comes to labour disputes that have proven successful. Boulet pushed back saying the decisions will be handed down by impartial and independent parties like the Labour Tribunal and arbitrators. Leduc maintained that strikes are preceded by months of negotiations, and 'it's not fun for anyone to go on strike' but it is one of the only tools to demand better working conditions and 'improve the quality of life for the middle class.' He also said employers often stall negotiations, but 'no one talks about that perspective.' Law could end up before the courts The unions say the impact of the bill will be felt even by non-unionized workers. 'The gains achieved through bargaining exert positive pressure on non-unionized sectors, forcing employers to adjust to remain competitive. The government is attacking the entire Quebec workforce by limiting workers' ability to defend and improve their working conditions,' they said. Pay equity, the establishment of the public child care network, the minimum wage, and parental leave are 'just some of the gains achieved through union mobilization,' they added. Interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay agreed with Boulet on the importance of 'striking a balance' while respecting the fundamental right to strike. Unions can contest the law in court, he said. The unions believe the law would not hold up in court. Meanwhile, they say the Labour Minister is 'not open to discussion' to find a mutually satisfactory solution, and 'trust has been broken.'
National Post
6 days ago
- Business
- National Post
Quebec legislators vote to cut ties with British monarchy after King's visit
Article content QUEBEC — On the same day King Charles III delivered a throne speech in Ottawa heaping praise on Canada, the National Assembly Tuesday adopted a motion calling on Quebec to abolish all ties with the monarchy. Article content Article content Presented by Parti Québécois leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, the motion states that Quebec is the only custodian of the democratic expression of the Quebec people. Article content It notes a majority of Quebecers feel no attachment to the British monarchy and that 'the National Assembly agrees to abolish the link between the Quebec state and the British monarchy.' Article content The motion was adopted without debate. The vote was unanimous with 106 MNAs from the Coalition Avenir Québec government and the other two opposition parties, the Liberals and Québec solidaire, voting in favour of the PQ motion. Article content The vote came on the same day as King Charles III delivered a historic address in the Senate Chamber in Ottawa, quoting the words of the Canadian national anthem. Article content 'The True North is indeed strong and free,' he said to the applause of MPs, Senators and number guests. Article content But at the legislature in Quebec City, the speech was greeted with a mix of indifference and ridicule. Article content 'I didn't listen to it,' Premier François Legault said on his way out of question period in the afternoon. 'I was in meetings.' Article content Simon-Jolin Barrette, the Minister Responsible for Canadian Relations, said the same thing, adding he would listen to it later. Article content But the opposition parties had plenty of opinions on the presence of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Canadian soil. Article content 'What a bizarre country Canada is,' Québec solidaire co-spokesperson Ruba Ghazal said at a news conference. 'To affirm its sovereignty, it believes it is important to bring the monarch of a foreign country here to talk about its priorities.' Article content QS was the first party to propose the abolition of the oath to the monarch MNAs used to have to swear before taking their place in the legislature. In December 2022 a law was adopted making the oath optional after PQ MNAs were briefly barred from sitting because they refused to take the oath. Article content Now QS wants to go further, calling on the CAQ government to put an end to the funding Quebec provides for lieutenant-governor — the king's representative at the legislature — to pay for things like office space, staff and a car and driver. Article content The Quebec budget this year included $758,000 to pay those costs. The salary of the lieutenant-governor is paid by Ottawa. The post is currently occupied by Manon Jeannotte. Article content The day after she was named in December 2023, the National Assembly adopted a motion calling for the post to be abolished. Nothing has happened as a result of that motion because, in reality, the government can't do much about the post in the short term. Article content While much of the job is ceremonial, Quebec laws do not become legal unless they have the royal sanction, which is Jeannotte's job. Article content QS has argued the lieutenant-governor's legal functions could be replaced by an administrator, a move that would require the support of the federal government and the other provinces. Article content Asked about the obstacles ahead, Ghazal insisted the first step is to at least start talking about it. Article content 'People said abolishing the oath would be impossible and yet we got it abolished,' Ghazal said. Article content QS says in the meantime Quebec, on its own, could stop funding the lieutenant-governor's office, a message she recently delivered to Jolin-Barrette who, she said, has taken note of the idea. Article content The CAQ's own 2015 platform called for elimination of the post of lieutenant-governor. Article content St-Pierre Plamondon started into the theme at his morning news conference, laughing off the idea that U.S. President Donald Trump will somehow be influenced by the presence of the king who came to Canada on the invitation of Prime Minister Mark Carney. Article content '(Carney's) best card is Charles III, a monarch from another country based on a colonial tradition that is oppressive to francophones and First Nations?' St-Pierre Plamondon told reporters. 'It's out there. It's so abnormal. And, of course, from a Quebec standpoint, it's not acceptable. Article content 'If you think or anyone else here thinks that Donald Trump will stop saying things that are either random or hostile to Canada because Charles III was giving a speech today, I don't know what game we're playing right now. It just doesn't make sense.' Article content Interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay, who said he is no fan of the monarchy, noted that abolishing the post requires a Constitutional amendment, which is no small order. Article content
CBC
26-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
What we've learned from the SAAQclic fiasco inquiry
Social Sharing It's been a month since a public inquiry was launched to shed light on the chaotic rollout of an online platform for Quebec's automobile insurance board and the eye-popping $500-million cost overrun it came with. The February 2023 launch of the SAAQclic online platform faced a series of major failures and sparked a customer service crisis. These problems were highlighted in a scathing report by the auditor general in February 2025. After the report's release, a Coalition Avenir Québec minister stepped down. The platform was intended to centralize most of the services from the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ). Instead, users across the province struggled to access and navigate it, and for weeks, frustrated drivers lined up in the cold outside SAAQ offices as technical issues dragged on. The public inquiry — presided by Denis Gallant and known as the Gallant commission — began on April 24. There have been several revelations, including a fourfold increase in the hourly rates of consultants. If you missed the past month's hearings, streamed online, here are some of the key takeaways. Several calls for tenders ended with a single bidder Prosecutors for the Gallant commission discovered that many tender calls related to the CASA project — the SAAQ's broad IT modernization project that included the SAAQclic platform — ended with a single bidder. Martin Lapierre, former internal auditor at the SAAQ, told the commission that several people who won calls for tenders for "strategic resources" had professional ties with Karl Malenfant, the former vice-president of the SAAQ's digital experience and the project director for CASA. Commission prosecutor Alexandre Thériault-Marois cited the example of Madeleine Chagnon who knew Malenfant because she had worked with him at Hydro-Québec and at RD3, a private IT solutions firm. In 2015, in the early days of the CASA project, she was the only bidder deemed compliant with the criteria for a SAAQ contract. Lapierre said he was astonished to find a clause in the call for tenders stating that the successful bidder had to "hold a master's degree, which could not be offset by years of relevant experience." "I haven't seen that often … It was peculiar," he testified. Lapierre explained during the session that he reported this to his superiors, who assured him that all the rules surrounding the call for tenders had been followed to the letter. SAAQclic inquiry reveals massive jumps in hourly wages, tailor-made calls for tender 3 days ago Duration 2:24 Consultants' hourly rates rose from $82 to $350, says former auditor The commission also revealed that employees from external firms working on the online platform were promoted from "integrators" to "leading experts" during the course of the project. As a result, according to former SAAQ internal auditor Martin Després, their wages more than quadrupled from $82 to $350 per hour. According to the contract between the SAAQ and a group commonly referred to as "the Alliance" — made up of the companies LGS and SAP — there were 10,793 hours of work planned over five years for these "leading experts." But less than two and a half years later, nearly 35,000 hours had already been billed under this employee profile. Després said it constituted an overrun of around $3 million. He told the commission that he had examined the tasks performed by the employees who had received these salary increases and, according to him, "there was no significant difference" in their work. He said he questioned his superiors and learned that the decision "came from above," from Malenfant's office. Between 2017 and 2019, Després and his team compared the hours billed by consultants hired by the SAAQ with the time they actually spent at the head office, as stipulated in their contract. The result: a gap of more than 12,500 hours, which Després said cost Quebec's automobile insurance board approximately $1.5 million. Després said he reported these results to his superiors. An internal investigation was then launched. The findings of the investigation surprised him. "We were told [the gap in hours] was remote work that was approved," said Després. Employees, with some exceptions, were required to work in the head office. All remote work had to be approved by the managers. "With all the checks we had done beforehand, we found it strange that all that remote work was approved afterward," said Després. He added that managers at the SAAQ asked the auditors to destroy the documents related to their investigation, which he says he and his team refused to comply with. A CEO 'from another planet' with no digital experience During his testimony, former SAAQ board chair Konrad Sioui recounted how Denis Marsolais found himself at the helm of the automobile insurance board in January 2022, just over a year before the rollout of the digital platform. At the time, CEO Nathalie Tremblay had just retired. In the middle of the interview process, Sioui said he received a call from the Secrétariat aux emplois supérieurs, which is a government agency that the province consults with when hiring people for senior-ranking positions. Sioui said he was told that they had found the right person: Marsolais, a longtime government official. "We felt that the political pressure was too heavy. They should have let us do our job. We had excellent candidates. But... it's the political side that takes over and says: 'Look, this is the one we want, and that's that,'" said Sioui. Although Marsolais was described as "willing" and "ready to roll up his sleeves," he was also "from another planet," according to Sioui. WATCH | How the SAAQclic fiasco led to a minister's resignation: Quebec minister resigns in wake of SAAQclic fiasco 3 months ago Duration 2:26 Board of directors knew the project had 'all the flaws' François Geoffrion, who sat on the SAAQ's board of directors from 2013 to 2022, told the Gallant commission the board knew that the digital transformation project was "risky" and had "all the flaws," even before the call for tenders was launched. "We screwed up twice," said Geoffrion. "In the needs assessment and during the rollout." According to him, several warning signs were flashing red from the very beginning of the project, including the SAAQ's lack of technological maturity, insufficient specialized resources, and not enough managers to oversee the project. Additionally, documents submitted to the commission suggest that SAAQ administrators, including the chair of the board at the time, were made aware as early as October 2020 of the likelihood that the rollout of the website would face cost overruns, according to documents submitted to the commission. The commission resumed Monday and the inquiry's report is due by Sept. 30, 2025.
Montreal Gazette
22-05-2025
- Health
- Montreal Gazette
Dubé tables bill to change how Quebec doctors are paid
Quebec Politics The Legault government wants to link doctors' pay to various performance objectives in an effort to see the physicians take on a greater number of patients. Provincial Health Minister Christian Dubé tabled Bill 106 on Thursday even as contract negotiations with Quebec's two medical federations are continuing. The proposed legislation has been badly received by doctors, who have deemed it 'special legislation.' La Presse has reported that the government's own committee of experts on access to front-line care have also stopped short of recommending it. Meanwhile, the official opposition thinks the prospect of the law will be used by the government to provide leverage during negotiations with the federations. After first promising that each Quebecer would have access to a family doctor, the Coalition Avenir Québec government is now pledging to Quebecers access to a 'health-care milieu' such as a family medicine group. About 1.5 million Quebecers do not have a family doctor or regular health-care professional, a proportion of the population the government estimates at 17 per cent. This story was originally published May 8, 2025 at 12:51 PM.
