‘Open bar’ for Quebec ex-premiers, CAQ blasts

• The hefty taxpayerfunded payouts doled out to ease the transition of former Quebec premiers back into private life became a political football in the legislature Thursday with finger-pointing all around.

The feud peaked with the Coalition Avenir Québec presenting a motion calling on the government to immediately make public information about all the money handed to former leaders, Liberal and Parti Québécois, since 1995.

The government refused to give its consent to debate the motion, so it died. But that did not stop the CAQ from ripping both parties for quietly keeping the system going for years.

What started as a reasonable idea to give retiring politicians secretarial help with mail and their archives after leaving office and a driverbodyguard for security reasons has careened out of control and now amounts to an “open bar,” the CAQ said.

“This really angers me,” CAQ Leader François Legault told reporters. “Quebecers are right to feel cynical when they see governments, PQ or Liberal, give money to former premiers at the same time as they ask citizens to make (austerity) efforts.

“It’s an old system maintained by old parties and they have let this go on for years.”

Legault called Premier Philippe Couillard’s pledge to review the system and reduce the cost — PQ Leader Pierre Karl Péladeau also wants it to be reviewed — “timid” on all levels.

“I don’t hear them denouncing what the former premiers

It’s an old system maintained by old parties

did,” Legault said. “They have to preach by example. They are protecting the old way of doing things by old parties.”

It was revealed this week that the two most recent premiers, Pauline Marois and Jean Charest, are each allowed to claim refunds for expenses totalling $200,000 a year for a total of three years.

Marois and Charest also have access to a governmentpaid chauffeur-driven car.

Charest, who returned to a law practice, has claimed a total of $368,566 when all his transportation costs, office rent and contracts to hire personnel are added up.

Pauline Marois’s expenses since leaving office in 2014 have reached $129,276. That includes hiring six professionals as well as awarding a $24,500 contract to a defeated PQ candidate, Dominique Payette, to produce a “panorama on the regional media in the provincial capital.”

With the premier absent, Liberal House Leader JeanMarc Fournier said the government has already set in motion a review of the system and that all MNAs agree former premiers need to be shown respect for their contributions to Quebec.

He accused the CAQ of a double standard because it lobbied hard to get a $1.5-million increase in its National Assembly operating budget and now accuses others of a lack of discipline.