(Quebec) In an apparent attack, the opposition made a final plea to Minister Christian Dubé next week to abandon the use of gag orders to push through his sweeping health reform. The latter still refuses to exclude him.
“We are gathered here to ask Minister Dubey not to go ahead with a vandalism [le projet de loi] 15,” pleaded Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, the unity deputy. “We are talking about the second largest bill in the history of the parliament, with bundles of amendments being tabled every week. The bill basically writes itself as it goes,” he added.
Mr. Cliche-Rivard said on Thursday that her opposition colleagues, Liberal André Fortin and PQ Joël Arseneau – are participating in a detailed study of the reform – and representatives of several social groups and unions.
Today, hundreds of civil society organizations, groups and associations from the community, trade union, cooperative and medical sectors are coming together to ask Health Minister Christian Dubé not to back down and force his reform on Quebecers.
Nathalie Deziel, representative of the Health Solidarity Alliance
Groups there are calling on the minister to stop “rushing solo” towards passing his reform before the end of the parliamentary session, which ends on Friday 8 December. The Health Minister presented his game plan last week to adopt a legislative speech imposed before the holidays.
“Let’s be very, very clear. The opposition has done an incredible job so far and when I submitted my game plan, I said that if we continue to cooperate in the same way, it is definitely possible to adopt this before the end of the year. […] So far, I am very optimistic,” said Mr. Dube said earlier.
Bill 15 will result in the creation of the Sainte-Québec, which provides for a six-month period of adoption to create this brand new government agency, which will become the sole employer of the health and social service network. Sainte-Québec is responsible for the entire operational aspect of the ministry.
“A reform like this affects various aspects of the health network, community groups, unions, employees, and it will ultimately affect the patients of the network. We cannot do it too quickly, we cannot do it in a hurry,” said Member of Parliament Andre Fortin.
A “fishtail” result
More than 600 of the approximately 1,200 articles of Bill 15 have been adopted so far with hundreds of amendments tabled by the minister. The latter presented this Thursday to others in a hundred-page document. On Tuesday, Mr. Dubey sent shockwaves through the trade union world by proposing amendments to increase the number of job categories in the network from four to six.
“Two days ago, I was taking major changes in job categories,” said Mr. Arsenio revealed. “Primarily the affected people don’t know. They don’t even have a say about it because they’re not sure they can measure the impacts,” he lamented, fearing that a detailed study of the bill would end in “fishtails”.
Mr. According to Dubey’s roadmap, parliamentarians will adopt more than 400 amendments during the intense work week on December 5, most of them harmonization articles.
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