Quebec’s premier faced tough questions Wednesday on his management of the COVID-19 crisis.
All three opposition parties had the chance to quiz him during a two-and-a-half-hour debate at the Quebec National Assembly.
Opposition leaders said Quebec mishandled the pandemic, which led to it being the hardest-hit province in Canada.
Premier François Legault was in the hot seat Wednesday afternoon, on occasion going on the defensive, as opposition leaders grilled him on his government’s management of the coronavirus crisis.
Parti Quebecois interim leader Pascal Bérubé said, “Quebec represents 23 per cent of the Canadian population, but accounts for 63 per cent of the country’s COVID-19 deaths.”
He then asked the premier why the government has not launched an independent investigation into what went wrong during the first wave, as the province of Ontario has.
Liberal leader Dominique Anglade said the premier should have done more between the months of January and March to ensure that Quebec was ready for the COVID-19 pandemic and create a preparedness plan.
Legault defended his handling of the health crisis.
“We were the first province to close schools, stores and businesses. We acted very quickly,” he said, adding that the pandemic caught leaders all around the world by surprise.
“I believe he realizes how bad the situation was here,” said Anglade.
“I believe that he likes comparisons and when he compares the situation in Quebec and realizes you stayed 54 out of 60 in North America, you know very well that things did not go the way it should have been.”
The premier said one hypothesis for why Quebec was hit worse than other provinces is that the winter break was one week earlier and many people travelled abroad.
On Wednesday, the government announced it was giving the health commissioner the mandate to conduct a full evaluation of the health care system.
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