(Quebec) Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois admits that accusing the Legault government of realizing Gaétan Barrette’s “wet dream” with his health reform “was not [his] best”. The solidarity leader, like the Liberal and PQ leaders, also criticizes the Prime Minister for publicly attacking the president of the FIQ.
“She wasn’t my best, let’s put it that way. Question periods are emotional moments. And, in the heat of the moment, it’s an expression that came out of the mouth, then, that’s it, it really wasn’t my best. I have no problem recognizing that,” admitted the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, who spoke on Tuesday of an expression “a little too colorful, then too connoted”.
Minister Christian Dubé’s tabling of Bill 15 aimed at making the health and social services system more efficient provoked heated discussions at the Salon Bleu last week. While questioning the Prime Minister, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois accused François Legault of realizing Gaétan Barrette’s “wet dream”. His statement made a lot of noise.
Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said on Tuesday that he had “got carried away” by the intensity of the exchanges. “It wasn’t prepared, it wasn’t a prepared line. […] Politics is also about passions. Sometimes our passion takes over our intellect. That’s what happened in my case last Thursday,” he said.
The solidarity leader added that on the merits, his training is opposed to the reform of Christian Dubé, but that he offers his full collaboration to the minister for the future.
In turn, the opposition parties have denounced the Prime Minister’s remarks to the president of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la Santé du Québec (FIQ), Julie Bouchard. On Monday, François Legault shared Patrick Lagacé’s column entitled “Bleaking for crying” using a sentence from his text.
“We have to talk about Julie Bouchard, president of the FIQ, the great union of nurses,” wrote Mr. Legault on his Twitter account.
“I don’t find it worthy. In fact, I find it disappointing because we were creating a space for everyone to advance health, ”said PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. “I’m asking the prime minister to correct the course and give everyone a good faith space,” he added.
“It’s a bit special to call out to the president of a particular group. I think the Prime Minister has a mandate, with 90 MPs, to introduce his bill. Now he must collect. I don’t think it’s a unifying gesture to do that, ”said the interim leader of the Liberal Party of Quebec, Marc Tanguay.
“Some will say: it’s only a tweet, but I think it’s indicative of the attitude of François Legault. François Legault is in confrontation mode. […] And the fact that he calls like that, directly by name, a union leader, it illustrates that François Legault, he wants to squabble with the unions and, obviously, that’s what he’s doing.” , argued Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.