MONTREAL -- Marguerite Blais will come out of sick leave on Friday for one day only, having received a second subpoena from the coroner in December.
The minister responsible for seniors and caregivers will finally explain her perspective during the first wave of the pandemic that killed thousands in CHSLDs in the spring of 2020.
What did she know, at what point did she know, and what did she do? Her long-awaited testimony should clear up a few things, says lawyer Patrick Martin-Ménard, who represents six families of seniors who died in CHSLDs.
“Minister Blais is certainly an important witness," he said, adding that “now, it’s also going to depend a lot on what she’s willing to share,”
“I have confidence that she will be transparent and that she will be willing to contribute to the investigation [...] by giving accurate answers [...] about the facts of which she has personal knowledge,” he added.
Coroner Gehane Kamel said last Monday that after months of investigation, it’s still unclear what was done between January and March 2020 to prepare the CHSLDs for COVID-19.
She also questioned several government decisions, including the transferring of hundreds of seniors from hospitals to CHSLDs at the beginning of the crisis, as well as prohibiting access to caregivers.
It was only on April 11, 2020, that an expert committee on seniors was set up, with the investigation showing that many seniors were already neglected basic care.
THE MINISTER “GAVE IT HER ALL”
During this period, Minister Blais “gave it her all,” according to her communications advisor Lyann St-Hilaire.
“Even to the point of making herself sick,” she added.
“She will come and show what she has done for seniors [...] with candor,” St-Hilaire said. “She will speak from her heart to the people of Quebec.”
Blais has been on sick leave since Oct. 29. Her testimony before the coroner was originally scheduled for Nov. 16.
At one point, it was out of the question for her to testify at all.
Although her health has improved slightly, Blais does not plan to return to government service immediately; her doctor’s orders are valid until Feb. 15.
“She really wanted to answer questions," said St-Hilaire. “It hurt her a lot last fall to see that people thought she was avoiding the issue.”
Blais will go to the Trois-Rivières courthouse on Friday.
OPPOSITION DEMANDS ANSWERS
According to Monique Sauvé of the Quebec Liberal Party (QLP), critic for seniors and caregivers, “there must be a lot of information that comes out of this testimony.
“Let’s remember that we had one of the worst records in the world for deaths in CHSLDs, that many families are still grieving today. Let’s think about all these people in Quebec, about everything they have gone through.”
Sauvé points out that Blais is the only minister, along with Premier François Legault, who was in the crisis unit at that time and who is still in office today.
“It is certain that my expectations are very high. She must give answers because she is the minister responsible for seniors, because she is the minister responsible for the CHSLDs,’’ Sauvé said.
Parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire (QS), Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, also expects Blais to tell “the whole truth.”
“She must tell us what her powers really were,” he said.
“The objective here is not to find guilty parties or to knock heads. It’s to understand where our system failed, so that we can learn from the pandemic,” Nadeau-Dubois explained.
For her part, Parti Quebecois (PQ) member Lorraine Richard said she hops she won’t be disappointed on Friday.
“I would be extremely surprised if she did not protect her government,” she said.
The coroner’s office said it would not comment on Blais’ testimony while the hearings were still underway.
— This report was first published in French by The Canadian Press on Jan. 13, 2022.