Quebec Government Uses Pandemic as
Pretext to
Step Up Anti-Social Offensive
Legault Government's Shameless Grandstanding
Health care workers protest outside Premier
Legault's office in Quebec City, May 19, 2020,
demanding an end to government's use of arbitrary
powers to violate their rights during the COVID-19
pandemic.
Quebec Premier François Legault on June 21 made
what he called "adjustments" to the
responsibilities of certain ministers "to prepare
the government for a possible second wave of
COVID-19." This shameless grandstanding bears no
resemblance to the reality of the pandemic Quebec
faces, the attendant economic crisis and the
anti-worker anti-social actions the government has
taken.
Using the pandemic as an excuse, the government
has given itself executive powers to cancel
collective agreements negotiated with workers. In
announcing the cabinet shuffle Legault did not
mention this attack on public sector workers,
which suggests the reshuffle signals an increase
in the government's arbitrary dictate against
workers and others. Legault announced the
reshuffle soon after the National Assembly
adjourned on June 12, without having passed Bill
61, which has been roundly denounced throughout
Quebec as regressive.
The main ministries affected with leadership
changes are health, education, immigration and the
Treasury Board. Christian Dubé is stepping down as
President of the Treasury Board to take over as
head of the Ministry of Health and Social
Services. This man of finance, a neo-liberal
manager and former senior vice-president at the
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is a key
element of Premier Legault's bankers' government.
Dubé introduced the omnibus Bill 61 on June 3 and
immediately found himself and his bill denounced
by the people. In the name of economic recovery,
Bill 61, like the cabinet shuffle, does nothing
concrete to deal with the pandemic and recovery
but will lead to a greater concentration of
arbitrary power in the hands of the government
executive to pay the rich. Declaring that Bill 61
will speed up the building of infrastructure is
meant to elicit cheers from the people. At the
same time, the people are supposed to keep quiet
about Bill 61's dark side that sidesteps
environmental, health and safety and other
regulations to pay the rich, and provides
the ministers with immunity against protests
from the people, including those whose property
may be expropriated.
 In an
interview shortly after his recent appointment as
Minister of Health and Social Services, Dubé said
that the purpose of his appointment is to
strengthen accountability in the system from top
to bottom, from managers to employees. "The crisis
with COVID has highlighted weaknesses in
management, lack of information, how patients are
doing, where our employees are," he declared with
an air of saying something really important and
not spouting trite phrases. "If there are people
who could do better elsewhere, who are not doing
the job, there will be difficult decisions to
make," he added. Dubé said the health care system
has suffered in recent years from cutbacks and
restructuring that have deprived the system of
intermediate levels of decision-making. This
assertion comes from a man who has been in cabinet
during many of these cutbacks and takes no
responsibility for the damage these cuts have
caused, which have left the system drained and
weakened in the face of the pandemic.
Of course in line with the authoritarian bent of
his government, Dubé suggests the health care
system needs a top-down decision-making system
directly controlled by him, which excludes input
from the health care workers who do the work and
are familiar with the problems and what really is
needed. His appointment and these remarks do not
bode well for health care workers and the public
who want and need a modern health care system
where those who deliver the service and the people
who depend on it decide its direction. When the
Legault government talks about accountability, it
blames workers for the problems, and criminalizes
their actions in defence of their rights and the
rights of the people who need and demand a modern
health care system. Dubé simply doubles down on
negating his government's responsibility for the
weaknesses laid bare during the pandemic.
Sonia LeBel, the former prosecutor of the 2011
Charbonneau Commission, is taking over Dubé's
previous position, becoming Minister Responsible
for Government Administration and Chair of the
Treasury Board. She will be in charge of the
government's negotiations to renew the collective
agreements of 500,000 public sector workers and
oversee the passage and implementation of Bill 61.
Like LeBel's role in the Charbonneau Commission,
her new role with Bill 61 is to divert attention
from any corruption involving narrow private
interests seeking maximum profit from public
contracts and projects, and the government in
charge of doling out the public money. LeBel's
role as prosecutor during the Charbonneau
Commission was to deflect attention from what most
people saw as corruption involving the cartel
parties in power receiving financial kickbacks
from big construction companies that were awarded
public contracts. The Commission sought to cloud
and deflect the issue with attacks on construction
workers and their unions, by equating their fight
in defence of their rights as something akin to
the mafia and the illegal restriction of economic
activity. With Bill 61, Legault will have LeBel
take a similar tack when dealing with public
sector workers and issues surrounding health and
safety, the environment etc, to equate the
people's defence of rights as a restriction to
building the infrastructure projects the
government is pushing to pay the rich.
The greatest corruption in Quebec is the
strengthening of the arbitrary powers of the state
to attack the working people and pay the rich, and
then covering up the government's crimes with laws
that give it immunity from prosecution. Just like
the Charbonneau Commission, Bill 61 will be used
to serve the private interests of the rich and
marginalize and criminalize the actions and voice
of the working people.
Other Changes in the Legault Cabinet and
Recovery Committee Shuffle
The Ministry of Education and Higher Education
has been split in two. Jean-François Roberge
remains Minister of Education while the Ministry
of Higher Education has been transferred to
Danielle McCann, the former Minister of Health and
Social Services.
On February 7, Legault's government used a gag
order to force the adoption of Minister Roberge's
Bill 40, which amended the Education Act
as regards school organization and governance. The
bill provoked an outcry of opposition from
teachers and education workers who denounced the
concentration of power in the hands of the
government executive and the elimination of the
intermediate levels of decision-making of the
past. Bill 40 is similar in many ways to Bill 61
in its intent.
 Simon
Jolin-Barrette, former Minister of Immigration,
Francization and Integration was appointed
Minister of Justice. The people broadly denounced
Jolin-Barrette for his attacks on immigrants. The
Legault government reduces the working class into
categories of "things" for sale in the labour
market and immigrants are one of these "things."
This is done to split the working people, hinder
the development of the struggle in defence of the
rights of all and decrease the value of workers'
capacity to work, which they sell to employers.
Nadine Girault replaces Jolin-Barrette as
Minister of Immigration, Francization and
Integration. She was recently appointed co-chair
of the action group against racism set up by the
Legault government to promote the vision of
systemic racism in which the people are blamed so
as to hide and protect the state-organized racist
attacks carried out by the state institutions,
including the government itself.
Premier Legault also shuffled the members of the
Economic Recovery Priorities Committee created at
the end of March at the height of the pandemic. At
the time, the Premier called the committee the
"filter for all government spending." With the
exception of health care, the Premier said that
for every dollar invested, the government will
have to answer the question: "Is it strategic for
recovery?"
This neo-liberal gibberish is meant to prettify
and strengthen the pay-the-rich economy at the
expense of the rights and well-being of the people
and the necessity for their voice and empowerment
to be at the centre of all economic decisions and
development.
The Economic Recovery Priorities Committee
operates in secrecy, similar to a board of
directors of big business, deciding where
expropriated value should be spent. In fact the
government cabinet operates as an executive
committee in Quebec for the global oligarchy. It
ensures all the resources, infrastructure and
workers in Quebec are readily available to be
exploited and the value they create can be legally
expropriated and declared private property of the
global rich within a legal state superstructure
with police powers embellished with neo-liberal
nonsense and ideology.
The Economic Recovery Priorities Committee
includes Pierre Fitzgibbon, Minister of the
Economy and Innovation; Eric Girard, Minister of
Finance; Jean Boulet, Minister of Labour,
Employment and Social Solidarity; Sonia LeBel,
President of the Treasury Board; Nadine Girault,
the new Minister of Immigration, Francization and
Integration; Benoit Charette, Minister of the
Environment; Geneviève Guilbault, Deputy Premier
and Minister of Public Security.
This article was published in
Volume 50 Number 24 - July 4, 2020
Article Link:
Quebec Government Uses Pandemic as
Pretext to: Legault Government's Shameless Grandstanding
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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