QUEBEC CITY -- Accused of not telling the "whole truth" to the coroner about her management of the first wave of COVID-19 in CHSLDs, Quebec's minister responsible for seniors is defending herself from trying to protect the government.

The opposition has noted four versions reported by Minister Marguerite Blais, who is once again at the center of controversy since the health crisis that left more than 5,000 dead in CHSLDs in the spring of 2020.

The minister first said that she was not listened to in the crisis cell, then she said in front of the coroner that she spoke and was heard, but in a book that has just been published, she claims that she was yelling to prevent the transfer of seniors from hospitals to CHSLDs.

"While she was yelling and screaming, people were dying in horrible conditions in the CHSLDs," denounced PQ MNA Lorraine Richard in a press scrum at the National Assembly on Tuesday.

"The Minister of Seniors did not tell the whole truth at the coroner's inquest, and she was under oath ... I am horrified and I wonder who in the premier's office ... advised her not to tell the whole truth at the coroner's inquest, but rather to protect her government."

"Ms. Blais lied," said the leader of the official opposition, Dominique Anglade.

She told us she knew and alerted the authorities, then she alerted several people, then no one listened to her. Then, in another case, she came before the coroner and said, 'no one knew, finally, we didn't know.

Liberal House Leader André Fortin counted four different versions of Blais' testimony, including a return to the version given during the coroner's inquest in January by Gehane Kamel.

In a press scrum Tuesday afternoon, Blais said she would give the same answers to the coroner if asked the same questions.

At the time, rather than saying she was yelling, she said, "Everyone knows that when it's time to talk, I talk. If I hadn't been heard by the premier, we would never have had as much investment in improving seniors' care."

At the height of the crisis in 2020, a directive had put an end to transfers of seniors from hospitals to CHSLDs, but the transfers had continued, and that's why she had yelled, in order to put an end to them, Blais told reporters Tuesday.

She added that she had "never" been asked to protect the government.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on March 29, 2022