Photo: Jacques Boissinot The canadian Press
The prime minister François Legault
The prime minister François Legault said it was open Tuesday to extend the work of parliament to enable adoption of the draft law on the economic recovery, while the consultation on this initiative is taking place at an accelerated speed.
“If it is necessary to extend the session […] we are ready to do it,” he said in a press conference.
This omnibus bill is designed to expedite 202 infrastructure projects across the Quebec — Houses of the elderly, NURSING homes, hospitals, primary and secondary schools, repair of roads and transit projects — to stimulate the quebec economy was severely hit by the pandemic. The government wants to adopt it by the end of the work of the parliament on Friday, a week and a half after it is filed.
However, it will not be back as claimed by the opposition parties, according to the public procurement Authority (GPA). The organization created in the wake of the Charbonneau Commission was the first group to testify during the second day of the consultation.
“Article 50, for us, may have objectives that are very laudable, it can be quite useful,” said the president-acting director general of the AMP, to Me, Nathaly Marcoux.
The opposition fear the drifts
The opposition parties fear that article 50 of the draft law will not lead to excesses similar to those spread out on the big day at the Charbonneau commission. This article would allow the government to derogate from the Statute on contracts of public bodies (LCOP) for the conclusion of contracts of otc. It will no longer have to bend to the rule of the lowest bidder.
The AMP recognizes, however, that article 50 is “large” and believes that the government must maintain the great principles of transparency, healthy competition and fairness that are at the heart of the awarding of public contracts. The use of the powers that would give this article the government would not, therefore, necessarily violate these principles at the heart of the LCOP, according to Ms. Marcoux.
The agency believes it has enough resources to carry out its mission, but calls for the powers of audit and investigation, such as those of the Office of the inspector general of the City of Montreal. “This would be the power to be able to contact the companies, sub-contractors, to witnesses, to ask them to respond to our questions and not only the government agencies,” said Ms. Marcoux.
The inspector general of the City of Montreal, Me Bridget Bishop, must testify in the afternoon just as the ex-director of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal and the current inspector general of the city of Saint-Jerome Jacques Duchesneau. The testimony of the monitoring Committee of the recommendations of the Charbonneau Commission has been relegated to late evening to 21: 45. The testimony of the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE), which would be directly affected by the bill has also been scheduled in the evening.
The government wants, among other things, accelerate the popular consultations in advance of environmental assessments of the BAPE. During their testimony Tuesday morning, the David Suzuki Foundation and the organization Équiterre have expressed a number of reservations to the place of this bill.
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