CAQ to invoke closure to push through sweeping health-care reform bill

The Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government is poised to push through Bill 15, its sweeping health-care reform legislation.

The government will invoke closure, a procedure that enables it to end debate and fast track the bill's adoption, before the end of the legislative session.

The decision to do so comes after the CAQ failed to reach an agreement with opposition parties to extend the session. 

The bill, which essentially centralizes much of the health-care system's decision making in a new entity, Santé Québec, is expected to be adopted either late Friday or Saturday. Health Minister Christian Dubé says the bill is intended to make the health-care system more efficient. 

It is a massive piece of legislation, with more than 1,000 articles, and was the subject of much debate as a committee went through it line by line. 

Premier François Legault told reporters at the National Assembly that the bill had now been debated enough.

"It's been 238 hours that Christian Dubé has been listening to the suggestions of the opposition," he said. "Do you think there needs to be more?"

Dubé told reporters the bill has been analyzed in parliamentary committee since April and was ready to become law. 

"I'm a bit tired of seeing what's happening in our health network. People waiting in the emergency room, people dying in the emergency room, people who can't get a doctor's appointment, long waiting list for [youth protection]," he said.

"I think we need to make these changes."

Legault said the goal of Bill 15 is to put decision-making powers in the hands of local health-care managers, but simultaneously giving them performance indicators that they must hit and making them accountable for doing so. 

Opposition MNAs said Friday that they were co-operative with the government and decried the use of closure to pass the bill. The bill is large, Québec Solidaire MNA Guillaume Cliche-Rivard said, and many of its articles had yet to be discussed by the committee. 

The bill is controversial for a number of reasons. Critics have said that it will lead health-care institutions to lose some autonomy, undermine their ability to raise funds and, last month, protesters in Montreal said the bill would undermine the work of midwives by placing them under the authority of medical directors.

Critics in Quebec's English-speaking community have also raised concerns about an amendment to Bill 15 that they say opens the door to the removal of bilingual status from some health-care institutions.

Three top Montreal health officials — the heads of the health authorities for the West Island and Centre-West regions along with the head of the McGill University Health Centre — released an open letter to Dubé Friday morning.

"The preferred language to receive care has been, and must continue to be, the foundation of the right to access services in English for reasons of safety, efficiency and quality," the letter reads.