QUEBEC CITY -- The leader of the Parti Québécois (PQ) suspects that Quebec has fabricated a document that was given to the coroner Gehane Kamel, who is looking into deaths at long-term care homes (CHSLDs) during the first COVID-19 wave.
In a news briefing at the National Assembly on Tuesday, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said the government was getting dangerously close to "obstruction."
On Monday, Kamel announced that she received an Excel file containing information on surveillance visits made to CHSLDs in the spring of 2020.
However, Kamel had requested that each of the grids completed by the inspectors be sent to her, and not just a file into which the data had been put.
"What was presented, never, from what we understand, was said to be a reconstitution, a fabrication dated November 16," said St-Pierre Plamondon. "It's starting to look like obstruction, a government that doesn't want to collaborate with the coroner who has the mandate ... to shed light on what happened during the first wave."
The information contained in the inspection grids of the care homes is important because it explained the housing conditions of the elderly during the crisis.
Kamel said Monday that her only goal was to "give answers to the bereaved families."
She said she may subpoena other witnesses in January.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on Nov. 30, 2021.
