Couillard confident as session opens
Trying to set the tone on the opening day of session Tuesday at the National Assembly, Premier Philippe Couillard insisted this political season will be all about “Quebecers’ newfound prosperity and confidence.”
But his speech about renewed confidence — a word he repeated dozens of times throughout the day — did not convince opposition parties, who kicked off the fall sitting with virulent attacks on Transport Minister Laurent Lessard, whose friend’s management of cottages at a governmentsubsidized ski resort adds to the floating “smell of corruption,” according to the Coalition Avenir Québec.
“We’ve balanced our public finances for education, for health care, for the economy . ... That’s what we’ll repeat; that’s what we know we’re doing. We’ll say it again to the population,” Couillard told an exhilarated Liberal caucus on Tuesday, without taking questions from reporters.
The Liberals are trying to start the session on the right foot after multiple controversies derailed their plans over the summer.
They kicked off question period by paying homage and holding a minute of silence for former independent MNA Sylvie Roy, who died in July from acute hepatitis.
But that’s where politeness ended. Opposition parties wasted no time in attacking veteran politician Lessard, who hired his friend Yvon Nadeau in 2014 when he was forestry minister, despite the fact that Nadeau was heading a biofuel company and waiting for a $3-million government subsidy.
(Meanwhile in Quebec Superior Court, taxi drivers and owners blasted Lessard for overstepping his authority in negotiating an agreement with Uber, the controversial ride-hailing company.)
First, the PQ revealed that Nadeau helped a contractor obtain a $1-million subsidy to develop Adstock resort, and then started managing the resort’s cottages, while still working for the minister.
“It doesn’t work; there are too many links between these people,” said PQ MNA Agnès Maltais, adding Nadeau’s wife also worked for Lessard. “Mr. Lessard doesn’t seem to understand ethics and the level of cynicism in the Quebec population. We don’t want any more of these situations.”
Lessard argued he has always respected the law, and will collaborate with the ethics commissioner at a meeting on Wednesday. But the CAQ maintained there is an appearance of favouritism and that the auditor general should get involved in the file.
“The Quebec Liberal Party has a real problem of image, integrity and ethics,” said CAQ MNA Simon Jolin-Barrette, as the session’s opening day became more and more hectic. “Their sense of ethics is elastic. The population knows it, the Charbonneau Commission showed it and, for many years, a smell of corruption has floated around this party.”
Amir Khadir from Québec solidaire said Lessard is ill-equipped to clean up the transport department and increase transparency and accountability in government.
The attacks kept coming. Opposition parties blamed the Couillard government for the friendly takeover of Rona by American hardware giant Lowe’s in February.
“Quebec lost Rona because of the Liberal government,” argued PQ interim leader Sylvain Gaudreault. “We’ve had nationalist Liberal leaders in the past; today, we have an I-don’t-care Liberal leader.”
The CAQ jumped into the fray, repeatedly asking the premier whether his chief of staff, JeanLouis Dufresne, had been the one to authorize the sale of Investissement Québec’s 9.8-per-cent stake in Rona.
“It’s totally absurd,” Couillard shot back. “If I say it’s absurd, it’s because what you’re saying is false.”
The premier recognized Investissement Québec has “governance and communication problems” and said the problems will be addressed.
There will be more talk of Rona on Thursday when the National Assembly committee in charge of shedding light on the matter meets again to decide whether to hear former Liberal economy minister Jacques Daoust, Dufresne and former Liberal finance minister Raymond Bachand.
Mr. Lessard doesn’t seem to understand ethics and the level of cynicism in the Quebec population.