The end of the national assembly session has MNAs from all parties leaving unhappy — they say work is not getting done.
Opposition parties blame one person for a dysfunctional parliament: government house leader Simon Jolin-Barrette.
The government house leader is in charge of organizing legislative work and ensuring all parties cooperate to pass bills, but opposition MNAs say Jolin-Barrette is not doing his job.
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“It was better with the Liberals,” Pascal Bérubé, PQ Interim Leader.
“He’s so in a hurry to apply his policies that he’s forgetting that parliamentary debate is not a problem, it’s not an obstacle to a government governing,” said Quebec Solidaire Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois.
Opposition parties say the Coaltion Avenir Québec (CAQ) government is rushing through bills and making a lot of mistakes. This year it’s had to backtrack on things like reforms to an immigration program which brought university students educated in Quebec to tears.
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“I hope Mr. Simon Jolin-Barrette is going to make a big wish to Santa Claus: give me some ears, give me some heart, and I will do better,” said PQ Martin Ouellet.
Premier François Legault said his government hasn’t been going too fast and showing a lack of humanity.
“No, I think when we had to make adjustments, we did it,” he said.
“We have to work better together and that’s what I want to do for 2020, but it’s the first time in 30 or 40 years that we have four parties at the national assembly and that’s a new dynamic,” Jolin-Barrette said.
But he says he — and his government — get the message.
“I learned that I have to consult more,” he said.
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The national assembly will sit all day Saturday because the government has invoked closure to finish the work on a bill to freeze hydro rates, but Legault has a new year’s resolution to make the legislature run better. He’s given Jolin-Barrette the additional task of modernizing the legislature and they hope for cooperation of opposition parties.
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