April 4, 2023

Last week, we announced that a negotiation meeting was scheduled for Monday, April 3. The employer cancelled this meeting and rescheduled it on April 6. We are still trying to understand what the reasons are behind the rescheduling since Minister Dubé and Minister Lebel say they want to pick up the pace of negotiations.

Moreover, when the government presented its new bill to make the health and social services network more effective (Bill 15), it stated that the bill would not affect the current negotiations. Upon closely studying what the bill contains and, above all what it does not contain, we must once again say that the government is using public relations to mask the reality and present a version of it that makes it look good.

Bill 15 will merge the health and social services institutions under one sole employer called the Agence Santé Québec. This new employer will manage the human resources all across Quebec’s network. Does this remind you of something? The CAQ government isn’t inventing anything new. We are witnessing a larger scale application of the mergers that led to the creation of the CSSSs (2005) and CISSSs and CIUSSSs (2015). We’ve done this song and dance before and we know all too well how it ends.

Did the institution mergers improve healthcare professionals’ working conditions? Will the next announced merger have better results? We can only hope, but if the past is any indicator of the future, we have reason to be concerned. 

Negotiations will definitely be affected by Bill 15, but the FIQ is firmly set on staying on track to improve its members’ working conditions. Beyond structural reforms, the government must understand that real solutions for the health system come from negotiating healthcare professionals’ working conditions. We must carry this message forward together in the coming months.

FIQ union representatives from across Quebec will meet at the provincial council on April 12 and 13 to look at all of the impacts Bill 15 will have on healthcare professionals.