By Raymond Viger
The Inuit do politics in a much more respectful way than us. They govern by consensus. No political parties. All their elected representatives are independents and must work together for the betterment of their community. You can see their cooperative spirit even in the way that they design their legislatures. Instead of the traditional face-to-face arrangement so that they can say silly things to each other, they organize their desks in a circle.
Since 1922, under the Quebec provincial government of Paul Sauvé, all political parties have recognized that our democratic system is obsolete and could be improved. The parties agree and sign agreements to make changes. But over a century later, nothing has changed.
A Litany of Failures
Provincial government efforts to reform health care haven’t done any better:
Lucien Bouchard’s 1997 reform: 37,000 healthcare workers took early retirement with compensation. Hospitals were closed. It was a failure.
Philippe Couillard’s 2003 reform: Huge financial bonuses were paid to doctors to increase the number of medical procedures. It was a failure.
Jean Charest’s 2008 organizational reform aimed at increasing access to care by 25% and reducing waiting lists. It was a failure.
Pauline Marois’s 2012 attempt at reform for long-term care insurance: Due to time constraints, this insurance could not be implemented. It was a failure.
Philippe Couillard’s 2015 reform with Gaétan Barrette: Creation of 34 integrated centers bringing together long-term care facilities (CHSLDs), local community health centers (CLSCs), hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and youth centers. Subsequently, hundreds of management positions were eliminated, as were the health agencies. These megastructures responded very poorly to the 2020 pandemic. It was a failure.
Christian Dubé’s reform of 2024. Dubé quit in frustration when some of his reforms were rolled back.
Did these shake-ups improve working conditions for health care sector employees? Have health care system users been better served?
The Quebec Act respecting the governance of the health and social services system was adopted in December 2023, under closure. That’s a parliamentary manoeuvre that allows a government to impose its will by circumventing the democratic process. Can we accept that a government imposes major restructuring that could lead to serious problems without prior consultation?
Between my fantasy of consensual government as practiced by the Inuit and our disastrous attempts at governing Quebec, there may be another route that we can and should take more often.
Cross-Party Agreements
Two important files have been managed this way: Violence against women and assisted dying. The process takes longer. It might require years of work. It is the exact opposite of decisions imposed through closure.
But it allows us to bring together politicians, workers from the sectors concerned, the media and citizens to improve our social projects and allow us to speak with one voice. It is better to hear everyone’s questions and comments while a project is being assembled rather than hearing them out when a project is underway and it is too late to change anything.
Ross-party working groups allow us to document how we’ll do things, difficulties along the way, and above all to plan for exceptions, sensitive zones, a proposed bill’s limits…
And the best thing about this process is that even though governments and ministers change, the new government will have participated in the creation of these laws and will have already endorsed them. That gives our social projects depth and staying power.
The media are included in this process, as a communication channel with the citizenry.
When a bill or a societal project touches the heart of who we are, when it will have long-lasting impacts on society, it should be mandatory that it go through a cross-party agreement procedure.
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