Legault under fire as opposition seizes on explosive report into COVID in care homes
Global News
The ombudswoman report and an ongoing coroner's inquiry into long-term care deaths have been at the heart of testy exchanges this week at the legislature.
After congratulating itself for months for its management of the COVID-19 pandemic, Quebec’s governing Coalition Avenir Québec party is on the defensive following an explosive report of its handling of long-term care during spring 2020.
The vulnerable residents of the province’s underfunded long-term care homes were largely an afterthought in the government’s pandemic preparedness plans, Quebec Ombudswoman Marie Rinfret concluded in her report released Tuesday.
She said 4,000 residents died between February and June 2020 — nearly 70 per cent of the COVID-19 deaths in Quebec during the first wave.
Rinfret’s report and an ongoing coroner’s inquiry into long-term care deaths have been at the heart of testy exchanges this week at the legislature. They have also renewed the opposition’s demands for a public inquiry into the government’s pandemic response.
Premier François Legault and his government are riding high in the polls in this election year, but opposition parties, which have struggled to gain traction, may have found something to seize on, said Daniel Béland, a McGill University political science professor.
“Right now, it’s tough moments for the Coalition Avenir Québec,” said Béland, director of the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada. “They want to avoid a bigger inquiry into this.”
Legault has so far refused to launch a public inquiry into his government’s pandemic response, and he has said that the investigations launched by other independent officials suffice to reveal what happened in spring 2020.
Béland, however, said he isn’t sure whether the disastrous first wave in long-term care homes is a big enough scandal to bring down Legault’s government when Quebecers head to the polls next fall.
