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Quebec Health Minister Christian Dub\u00e9 is stepping down.<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post, Dub\u00e9 cited difficult negotiations with the unions representing doctors in Quebec as a key reason for his resignation.<\/p>\n
In the post, Dub\u00e9 said he was also leaving the Coalition Avenir Qu\u00e9bec (CAQ) party and signalled that he was upset with the way the government had backed off on many of its planned health-care reforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He will remain as an Independent MNA representing the South Shore riding of La Prairie until the end of his mandate, he said.<\/p>\n
Dub\u00e9 became health minister after a cabinet shuffle in June 2020, steered the province through the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaw significant changes in the way Quebec administers its public health-care network.<\/p>\n
He said he had always worked to improve services for Quebecers, but recent negotiations took their toll. Dub\u00e9 had led a push to overhaul the way doctors are compensated in Quebec, forcing through legislation known as Bill 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The bill sparked massive backlash from doctors, who were angry over the legislation that would have tied part of their pay to performance targets.<\/p>\n
In his post, Dub\u00e9 said the government failed to adequately communicate Bill 2\u2019s objectives and impact. \u201cI take full responsibility for my part in this situation,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Quebec government finally backtracked on much of Bill 2, coming to an agreement with Quebec\u2019s family doctors, who are set to announce the result of their vote on the agreement on Friday.<\/p>\n
The deal was reached only weeks before the controversial legislation was set to go into effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Premier Fran\u00e7ois Legault stepped in after negotiations had broken off between Quebec\u2019s family doctors and Dub\u00e9, along with Treasury Board President France-\u00c9laine Duranceau.<\/p>\n
The agreement backtracked on several key points of the planned health reform, including doing away with penalties tied to performance targets. It also eliminated a controversial plan to assign patients on a colour-coded system based on their level of vulnerability, and removed all articles in the legislation that would have penalized doctors for not following the reforms.<\/p>\n
Agreement with doctors ‘maintains status quo’: Dub\u00e9<\/p>\n
In his post, Dub\u00e9 expressed disappointment with the way the government backed down on the measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must be honest with you,\u201d he said. \u201cSeveral key elements of Bill 2 were also aimed at modernizing the governance of the health-care system and enabling the government and Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec to fully exercise their role as managers of the public network.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, the agreement reached essentially maintains the status quo on governance issues between the government, the F\u00e9d\u00e9ration des m\u00e9decins omnipraticiens du Qu\u00e9bec (FMOQ) and medical directors in the health-care system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dub\u00e9 said the agreement with the doctors contains important advances, including a plan to incentivize family doctors to take on 500,000 new patients by June 2026.<\/p>\n
“These are real gains for patients, and it is important to highlight them,” he said.<\/p>\n
Still, that commitment would fall far short of the CAQ government’s original goal. Initially, the planned health reform included an obligation for family doctor groups, known in French as GMFs, to take on the province\u2019s estimated 1.2 million orphaned patients by January 2027.<\/p>\n
The implementation of Bill 2 has been delayed until the end of February to give the CAQ time to amend the legislation.<\/p>\n
In a brief statement, Legault said he respected Dub\u00e9\u2019s decision and said he had been informed of it at 2 p.m. on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thank him for his years of public service in one of the most demanding positions in Quebec,\u201d he said. \u201cOur government remains fully committed to improving access to health care for the population. This has always guided our actions, and we will continue our work in this direction.\u201d<\/p>\n
Departure makes Legault look bad: opposition<\/p>\n
Dub\u00e9 initially served as a CAQ MNA in 2012 and was re-elected in 2014, but resigned that same year to take a job with Quebec\u2019s pension fund manager. He returned in 2018, when Legault led his CAQ party to their first electoral victory.<\/p>\n
Dub\u00e9 took over the health file in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. He appeared in near daily news conferences around that time, updating Quebecers on new public health measures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He helped oversee the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and later headed the creation of Sant\u00e9 Qu\u00e9bec, a new Crown corporation intended to centralize much of the management of the health system.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, the Qu\u00e9bec Solidaire critic for health care, said Dub\u00e9\u2019s resignation is another example of how Legault\u2019s government is floundering.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor Fran\u00e7ois Legault, this latest departure is further proof of the failure of his hardline, combative and aggressive approach in recent months, which has failed to put the well-being of Quebecers at the heart of his political agenda,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":{"0":"post-190798","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190798\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}