Quebec Deputy Premier and Transport Minister Geneviève Guilbault is apologizing for playing a game during her department's budget credits review.
Guilbault had fun on Tuesday slipping unusual words like "winterisation", "croquignolesque" and "equanamity" into her answers to MNAs to score points in a game.
It was a social media post by the minister showing her in front of a document titled "Challenge - Credits 2023" with a list of words that gave the game away.
The post has since been taken down.
In a press scrum on Wednesday morning, the Legault government's number two explained that she was playing the game "for the love of the French language."
She apologized to "people who may have considered it inappropriate or lacking in judgement," assuring everyone that she was taking the budget study seriously.
"The aim was to introduce people to certain words, to use certain specific words, words that we are not used to using, which I personally find beautiful," she justified.
"Winterization" is a term that is used for buses, for example, or for heavy transport modes that have to be adapted to winter conditions in Nordic countries.
"In any case, if there are people who may have considered that it was inappropriate, I want to apologize for that, or that it lacked judgment, that was absolutely not the objective. God knows I take it seriously," she added.
The budget review is an annual accountability exercise. Guilbault spent four and a half hours on Tuesday justifying her department's actions and spending.
She said she was serious and thorough in her answers to MNAs.
"Who came up with this idea in her cabinet?" tweeted Pascal Bérubé of the Parti Québécois.
"While I was asking the minister questions yesterday, we learn that she was busy playing a game of inserting unusual words," PQ leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said on Twitter. "See for yourself her interest in answering my questions, and the quality of the answers," sharing with his followers the video of the transport credits study.
It is a difficult time for the transport minister, who earlier this year had to explain her role in the chaotic management of the digital transformation at the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec (SAAQ).
Two weeks ago, Guilbault became the face of the Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ)'s retreat on the third link between Quebec City and Levis, a retreat that caused the CAQ to fall in the polls.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on May 4, 2023.
