Society has failed Montreal, premier says

MONTREAL — For the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Quebec Premier François Legault visited Montreal on Thursday, where he announced the province had recorded 131 new deaths linked to the virus — 91 of them in the hard-hit city.

Montreal — the epicentre of the COVID-19 contagion in Canada and Legault’s hometown — is still so “fragile,” the premier said, that he had little choice but to cancel the rest of the school year for elementary students in the area.

Legault took some responsibility for the repeated failures to bring the contagion in Montreal under control, especially within the city’s long-term care homes, where the majority of the province’s deaths have occurred. But it’s Quebecers as a whole, he said, who have let this happen to Montreal. “I think the society failed,” he said.

There are three times more seniors in long-term care homes in Quebec, per capita, “than anywhere else in the world,” Legault said.

The homes were underfunded and understaffed for years, and the people who worked there were underpaid, he said.

Hundreds of members of the Canadian Armed Forces have been dispatched to the province’s long-term care homes to help feed and care for residents. Legault said Thursday that the Forces’ mandate had been extended until June 12.

The province had recorded 40,724 confirmed cases of COVID-19 by Thursday, an increase of 793 on the previous day. Almost 11,000 people have recovered. Montreal has had 20,633 cases and 2,154 deaths.

Daycares in the greater Montreal area, which had a tentative reopening date of May 25, now have to remain closed until at least June 1, the premier said.