Gaétan Barrette’s enthusiasm for Christian Dubé’s healthcare reform does not bode well, say the opposition parties.
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“I see Gaétan Barrette applauding healthcare reform, which worries me a lot,” Québec solidaire spokesman Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said at a news conference in Parliament on Tuesday morning.
On Monday, the former health minister told La Presse that he was delighted to see a health minister continuing his work, trying to do what Prime Minister Philippe Couillard had prevented him from doing. According to him, the wave of criticism that will follow the announcement of this reform will have the appearance of “World War III”.
“I don’t know if it was in the communications plan, he used ‘World War III.’ But he claps with both hands so much that his hands turn red. This is Gaetan Barrette. I can’t wait to see the other experts,” joked PQ MP Pascal Bérubé.
On the Liberal side, they seemed a little embarrassed about their former colleague’s departure. Interim chief Marc Tanguay did not want to say whether he had seen Philippe Couillard thwart his health minister.
He confined himself to remarking that in the Liberal era “the signs were pointing in the right direction”. “The CAQ, what we see five years from now, is all the indicators going up in the opposite direction,” he slipped.
Still, it is for the government and not the PLQ that Gaétan Barrette’s departure is perhaps the most embarrassing, Mr Tanguay suggested.
“I don’t know if Gaétan’s statements are more damaging to us or to the reform that is coming from François Legault,” he said.
Minister Dubé’s draft law, which will be tabled on Wednesday, provides for the creation of Santé Québec, which would become the single employer for the entire healthcare network. The department would remain responsible for setting policy, but Health Quebec would manage operations.
The law also stipulates that specialists should treat more patients and that staff have the opportunity to work in another region without losing tenure.