“It is in Quebec that the guidelines have been followed and there is a link to do with the issuance of 13h. People saw me a little like the father of the family,” said François Legault.
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June 19, 2020
Updated on June 20, 2020 4h20
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François Legault: orchestrating the chaos
Olivier Bossé
The Sun
“The night, I woke up to take notes and I arrived at the meeting in the morning with two pages of questions. I made them build a lot of tables that didn’t exist. I said : “We are going to take the NURSING one-by-one. How many cases? How many deaths? Organize-for me, green, yellow, red.””
François Legault is visual. The accounting officer training has always loved understand or explain with the help of tables, graphs, diagrams. Illustrate the figures.
The long desk where he was working, each day was filled with folders, when the prime minister has received The Sun in his office on parliament hill in Quebec city, this week. The host took the trouble to pack a stack to be able to see well his interlocutors, in front of him, the time of the interview.
The furniture in blond wood behind which he sits is a birthday gift offered by the Union nationale of Maurice Duplessis, in 1958. Seventeen prime ministers were installed prior to Mr. Legault. No other has had to manage a pandemic that claimed the lives of over 5,000 Quebec.
Saturday, it’s been 100 days that the Quebec lives under a state of health emergency declared by the government Legault for fighting the virus of the COVID-19.
Mr. Legault is back on its famous press briefings conducted in the beginning of each after-noon from march 12, flanked by the national director of public health, Dr. Horacio Arruda, and the minister of Health and social Services, Danielle McCann.
“It was improvised”, he says. “We didn’t say : “We are going to make it to 13!” We began to make it to 13 the first day and it continued the following days.”
Routine which has now come to an end of a non-official way, “unless it happens something special”, he says.
Scare the world
The occurrence of daily, an hour at the screen, more often looked at that District 31 or The Voice, required hours of preparation to lead to a short address felt to the nation before answering the questions of journalists. The one who has been minister of Health 17 years ago, for 15 months, has been mostly a need to deepen its knowledge in public health.
“Part of the success [of containment], it is because the people listened to 13h and have followed the instructions. It is in Quebec that the guidelines have been followed and there is a link to do with the issuance of 13h. People saw me a little like the father of the family,” said Mr. Legault.
Weapon that was later realized to be double-edged, at the time of the déconfinement.
“Quebecers had already scared. Perhaps we have succeeded too well in our operation, 13h”, thinks aloud the prime minister.
But he still has on the heart the comments of some who paddled in the opposite direction, from his point of view. As the opposition member of the pq’s Véronique Hivon at the time of the reopening of the schools, the beginning of may.
“Véronique Hivon is output to say : “It doesn’t make sense that we are thinking of reopening the schools and threaten our children!”” he said, pressing the word children to accentuate the severity.
“As if you returned to the war, almost… But it is necessary to explain the other side of the coin! If a child does not return to the school before September and that he has learning difficulties, do not go to school for six months, it is very serious for this child-there! And I knew by the public Health risks for the young people were very limited. But do fear the world, it is easy.”
In addition to the criticism from the opposition, the doubts were mounting within its own ranks. “People in communications told me : “If ever the reopening of primary schools in the regions did not go well, your political life is finished, Mr. Legault! Think twice!” But it is necessary to think of the welfare of the children too. And it has been” welcomed there today.
It was lacking information
Like an echo of itself. “It’s going to go well!” Quebec has heard the prime minister repeat the slogan from the 24th of march. “It has been, except in NURSING homes”, he admits now with humility.
“I think that it was transparent”, he says, with a little hindsight. “People have tried at one point to say that it was not, but that’s just because I didn’t have the information, me the first! Because we have a information system that is archaic to the Health, in fact in many departments within the government of Québec,” he says. We think of, among others, declarations of death by fax.
“Part of the success [of containment], it is because the people listened to 13h and have followed the instructions. It is in Quebec that the guidelines have been followed and there is a link to do with the issuance of 13h. People saw me a little like the father of the family ”
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François Legault, Quebec’s premier
The “nightmare” of Mr. Legault has been to see the residents of accommodation centres, long-term care (CHSLD) downright abandoned. The lack of 10 000 health care workers that prevailed already before the crisis, the shortage has exceeded the height of the epidemic 20 000 employees, most of them orderlies.
“There have been cases pathetic… people who ran out of food or who have not had a drink for hours, days… By 2020, at Quebec, a modern society, responsible…” let he fall, thinking no doubt that her own mother, Pauline, 91 years, would have been able to suffer the same fate if it was placed.
Spend the summer praying
This led him to accommodate the separate investigations initiated by the ombudsman and the chief coroner with serenity. But “we want to do something more. To see as it takes what has happened and what we could have done better”.
Because Mr. Legault says it is “confident that it will be the best” to defend against the second wave of contagion. But he “prays that it doesn’t happen before the 15th of September,” he adds, with many of the approximately 10 000 new attendants in CHSLDS, including the accelerated training paid has just begun.
“People in communications told me : “If ever the reopening of primary schools in the regions did not go well, your political life is finished, Mr. Legault! Think twice!” But it is necessary to think of the welfare of the children too. And it has been ”
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François Legault, Quebec’s premier
By then, 8000 volunteers recruited through the government site JeContribue are in the book, as well as the 270 last soldiers still stationed in NURSING homes, but on the point of pack up and leave.
François Legault and his government hope to benefit from a summer of respite for all of these reasons.
But also to have time to make a tribute to the Quebecers who died of the COVID-19. Special ceremony? A national funeral? Memorial? The formula remains to be specified, the time also. “Soon”, is simply to promise the prime minister.
François Legault provides that the government of the CAQ will maintain its commitments to the most important.
The Sun, Patrice Laroche
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FIND THE RHYTHM BEFORE THE ELECTIONS
François Legault does not loose the piece. Despite the crisis of the COVID-19, it promises to deliver on all its major commitments by the end of his first term, in a little over two years. And in the process, it will adopt “the equivalent of a bill, 61” designed to accelerate the construction and renovation of infrastructure.
“It maintains our commitments to the most important. The nursery four years, we are going to pursue. The homes of the seniors, we are going to accelerate, we’re going to do. Lower the school tax, it is done sooner than expected. Increase funding for home care, it is done. Environment, even if this was not a commitment, it makes tram projects, it’s moving forward. In culture, there has been budget increases historical”, has enumerated the head of the government of quebec to the Sun, during a review of the end of a session like no other.
“The challenge, it is very much in this economy,” he continues. I fixed by 2022 [election year] that we have returned to the beautiful problem that we had before the pandemic of a lack of manpower. This puts pressure to increase wages and reduce our wage gap with Ontario. It’s still my goal.”
Out of the polarization
It seems that a bill like the one on the reform of the voting system, filed September 25, 2019, may fall by the wayside. The proportional voting does not tend to give free rein to the governments, while the majority are strong for the Coalition avenir Québec, has allowed him to steer the ship of Quebec almost at whim in the storm of the last few months.
“It would be cynical to think like that. We see elsewhere, especially in the United States, it is necessary to get out of this polarization. Citizens desire that we work together and change the way voting goes in the direction of work together,” affirms, however, Mr. Legault, while the new voting mechanism would only come into service in 2026.
But in spite of increased collaboration during the crisis, partisanship has not disappeared from the national Assembly.
“Obviously, in bill 61, we did not work together. The opposition have not even wanted to adopt the principle of the bill!” castigates prime minister, about his bill to revive the economy by accelerating the construction and renovation of infrastructure.
Initiated by the adoption in the gag of the bill 40 on school governance, the parliamentary session interrupted several weeks ended in the cul-de-sac of bill 61.
“We may have tried to cast a wide net with the bill 61, but we will come back better prepared in the fall. We are going to be forced to spend the equivalent of a bill 61,” says he, putting part of the blame on the liberal mna Gaétan Barrette “to have played much the role of a leader to unite the three opposition parties against the draft law 61”. Olivier Bossé
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TRUDEAU SPEAKS, FREELAND IS
While Justin Trudeau speaks, his right arm, the vice-premier and minister of intergovernmental Affairs of Canada, asked by chrystia Freeland, is. This is the impression that keeps François Legault of the telephone meetings held every Thursday since the beginning of the crisis of the COVID-19 between the canadian prime minister and those of the provinces. “It is very operational. We missed out on gowns? Gloves? “That’s what I’m going to have this week?” “What is it made of?” It provides answers,” says Mr. Legault, on the usefulness of these calls.
No question, however, for him to go to these weekly appointments beyond the crisis. “Education, health care, it is a provincial matter. We had a health crisis, then technically, the federal government can’t begin to say how we will manage NURSING homes. Side economy, there has been the PCU, the assistance programs for rent, all of that… He listened to our proposals, but do not retain,” says he, doubting more than many people in the Red Cross come to replace the 1000 soldiers earlier deployed in NURSING homes. Olivier Bossé
