DUFRESNE STEPS DOWN
New chief of staff for Couillard
One year from the next election, Premier Philippe Couillard has changed his chief of staff as part of a shakeup in the government’s senior ranks.
Jean-Louis Dufresne, who has been with Couillard since the start of the Liberal’s 2014 mandate, has resigned and will be replaced by Jean-Pascal Bernier, 38, who had been Dufresne’s second-in-command on the bridge.
Couillard announced the news in a statement issued Tuesday. No reason was given for Dufresne’s departure.
Couillard had nothing but praise for Dufresne, a personal friend from his childhood who has been with him for most of his political career.
“Mr. Dufresne is leaving his job, but there is no doubt our 40-year friendship will continue,” Couillard said.
Couillard said Dufresne has been a key figure in his administration and played a big role in getting Quebec’s economy and the province’s finances back on track.
Dufresne’s successor, Bernier, is no stranger to the government. Under the old Charest government, Bernier was chief of staff to then-Treasury Board president Michèle Courchesne. He worked for Couillard in his 2012 leadership campaign.
“I decided to give these significant responsibilities to Mr. Bernier because he has always displayed a great capacity to manage complex situations,” Couillard said. “I have full confidence in his ability to complete our economic plan, which is designed to maintain the sane management of our public services and again reduce the fiscal burden of Quebec families.”
Little known by the public, a premier’s chief of staff plays a key political strategic role in any government and acts, to some degree, as the gatekeeper and protector of the boss, even if that sometimes means ruffling feathers.
In Dufresne’s case, those feathers were in the Liberal caucus, where some MNAs had been complaining privately about his management for months and considered him too authoritarian.
He was criticized for being slow to act to correct the mess in Quebec’s transport ministry and for the sale of Rona to foreign interests.
But the debacle in the party’s game plan for the Louis-Hébert byelection — where it chose Éric Tétrault as candidate only to be forced to have him pull out because of allegations of psychological harassment in his past job at Quebec mining company Arcelor — was the final straw for Dufresne.
Its brand tarnished, the Liberals now are worried they might lose the Oct. 2 byelection. The Coalition Avenir Québec’s candidate had to pull out for similar reasons.
Both parties announced their new candidates for the race during the weekend.
Normally in the shadows, Dufresne’s name made headlines in April when the Québecor media chain revealed a top Liberal fundraiser, Marc Bibeau, had tried to influence government communications by writing to Dufresne about a contract for the firm Schockbeton, owned by Bibeau.
The Parti Québécois opposition called for Dufresne’s head, but Couillard defended Dufresne.
On Tuesday, the opposition reacted, saying Dufresne’s departure is a sign the Liberal ship is listing badly.
CAQ Leader François Legault said he also wants to know the real reasons for Dufresne’s departure.
“He feels the need to reorganize, but all I want to say is two things: we are in a very good mood in the CAQ and, second, the person with the ultimate responsibility here is the leader,” Legault told reporters.
“It’s a question of leadership. Mr. Couillard does not seem to have good reflexes. He can’t blame his chief of staff and personnel for having poor reflexes. If bad decisions were made, we can’t blame the personnel for bad decisions.”
CAQ house leader François Bonnardel said this departure and other changes in Couillard’s top staff are a sign things are not going well.
There have been reports of friction between Dufresne and his former associate chief of staff, Johanne Whittom, who last week got a transfer out of the premier’s office into the bureaucracy. Whittom becomes an associate deputy minister in international affairs.
Couillard’s longtime communications director, Harold Fortin, has also seen his role modified. He now becomes director of international and Canadian relations in the premier’s office, a subject he has always been keenly interested in.
For now it seems his job will be split between media relations director Charles Robert and Joçanne Prévost, one of Couillard’s pressrelations people.
Quebecers go to the polls in October 2018. Dufresne’s departure will be seen as a signal Couillard wants to create some change before the election, but it is also his attempt to keep the peace in his caucus, which will be meeting Thursday and Friday in Val-d’Or.