The Quebec Election

October 18, 2018

by John McClaughry

Most Vermonters live within an hour’s drive of Quebec, Canada, yet it’s astonishing how little we know about events taking place in our northern neighbor.

There have been elections in the provinces throughout the year, and in almost every case provincial voters have chosen more conservative parties and candidates.

In Quebec there was a huge conservative win on October 1. Francois Legault and the Coalition Avenir Québec – Coalition for the Future of Quebec – won a huge parliamentary majority. This seven-year-old party has elements of conservatism and populism. It will form the first right-of-center government in Quebec since 1970.

As one Quebec pundit observed, “It remains to be seen how the CAQ will perform. The party seems intent on fiscal prudence and deregulation. But M. Legault was once a cabinet minister for the separatist Parti Quebecois, and the CAQ has expressed interest in Quebec nationalism.”

The CAQ doesn’t promise to undo Quebec’s single payer health care system, but it promises to attack its failures. Its website asks “What good is having a family doctor if it’s impossible to see him or her when you’re sick? The CAQ will ensure Quebecers not only have a family doctor but can benefit from a real team engagement within a reasonable timeframe. Better access to care without appointment, better access to healthcare in the evening and during the weekend … reduced waiting time in hospital emergency rooms and clinics”.

What he CAQ does to counter the unavoidable defects in Quebec’s single payer system could be worth watching.

— John McClaughry is vice president of the Ethan Allen Institute

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

William Hays October 19, 2018 at 9:45 pm

Great news, from ‘Le Belle Province’. About time! More great news from Ontario (Premier Ford), and good news from “anti-Truedope” parties in New Brunswick and Alberta. There is hope for ‘Oh, Canada’! More, shortly.

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Gordon October 20, 2018 at 11:44 am

The best way for the Quebecoises to get a family doctor is to privatize the healthcare, thereby restoring the patient/physician relationship to the physician, in accordance with the oath, determining the measure of his/her charity in view of genuine need. Socialism makes no room for private discretion in the charity – it coerces it, thereby destroying it. Private medicine is not anathema to the Quebec spirit of independence, much less undermining of their unique and beautiful cultural heritage. Vive Quebec!

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Bob October 24, 2018 at 3:13 pm

I live within eyesight of the Quebec border. I’m now retired, but one of my former coworkers lived in Quebec, but despite the FREE medical care provided by Quebec, she paid her share for VT BlueCross BlueShield so that she could bring her kids to a pediatrician in VT instead of waiting 7 hours in a Quebec waiting room for the FREE care there.

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The Ethan Allen Institute is Vermont’s free-market public policy research and education organization. Founded in 1993, we are one of fifty-plus similar but independent state-level, public policy organizations around the country which exchange ideas and information through the State Policy Network.
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