petition

Drainville walks back education cuts, warns against ‘open bar’

Drainville walks back education budget cuts, warns against ‘open bar’

Ruby Pratka, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

editor@qctonline.com

Weeks after asking school boards and service centres to slash their budgets by as much as $570 million, Education Minister Bernard Drainville has reversed course. On July 16, in a post on social media, he announced that the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government had set aside up to $540 million to fund student services.

School boards and service centres will still have to find up to $30 million in savings, and work within spending restrictions imposed by the ministry. “Let’s be clear, this is not an open bar,” Drainville wrote. “Of the $540 million announced today, $425 million will go into a dedicated fund. To have the right [to receive money from this fund], every school service centre must show that it is making efforts to reduce administrative costs, as well as ensuring that the money goes to fund student services only. Accountability will be demanded.”

Although Drainville’s announcement made no mention of English-language school boards, officials from the Ministry of Education and Higher Learning (MEES) and the Quebec English School Boards Association (QESBA) both later confirmed that the announcement also applied to school boards; MEES spokesperson Bryan St-Louis also said $29.5 million of the $540 million was set aside for private schools.

The announcement has left school boards and teachers’ unions scrambling to adapt to a radical funding overhaul, for the second time in two months, at the height of summer vacation.

“Everyone’s on vacation, everyone’s scrambling and making a plan to fill these positions,” said Steven Le Sueur, president of the Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (QPAT), the union federation representing teachers at English-language public schools. “Some cuts are still going to happen. We haven’t seen the details. I’d like to say we’ll know more before the start of the school year, but we don’t have that information.

“We’re happy [the cuts initially announced] have been retracted, but we’re not jump- ing up and down about it,” he added. “There are still so many issues with workload and class size, and it’s definitely not helping [from a recruitment standpoint] when it’s in the news that they’re cutting $570 million.”

“The additional funding from the ministry is certainly welcome news. We are presently crunching numbers,” said Jean Robert, chair of the Council of Commissioners of the Central Québec School Board, in a brief email exchange with the QCT. “I am convinced that the minister understood his original proposed cuts would directly affect services to our students.” Robert and QESBA communications director Kim Hamilton said they would know more later this summer about how the funding would be divided and distributed between boards and service centres; St-Louis later said the funds would be distributed between school boards, service centres and eligible private schools, pro-rated to student numbers.

The about-face came a week after a National Assembly petition against cuts to education, sponsored by Parti Québécois MNA Pascal Bérubé and heavily promoted by QESBA and by unions and parents’ groups on both sides of the language barrier, began making headlines (see story in last week’s edition on QCT website). As of this writing, it had received nearly 159,000 signatures. It can still be signed on the National Assembly website until Sept. 15. “We’re pleasantly pleased the public outrage worked, but there are still cuts to be made and services will still be affected,” said Le Sueur.

10,000 signatures to demand a nephrologist in the Gaspé Peninsula

Local Journalism Initiative / The Gaspé Spec / December 4, 2024 / Healthcare, nelson sergerie, nephrology, petition

Nelson Sergerie, LJI Journalist

than 10,000 signatures is calling on the Quebec government to establish a nephrologist position at the Gaspé Peninsula Integrated Health and Social Services Centre.

The Gaspé Peninsula is one of the only regions in Quebec, alongside Northern Quebec, without a dedicated specialist.

Jean Lapointe, the driving force behind the petition, has been fighting for a decade for the development of such a service in the Gaspé Peninsula.

On November 15, he submitted the petition to Gaspé riding Member of the National Assembly (MNA), Stéphane Sainte-Croix.

After successfully forcing the Quebec government to set up hemodialysis rooms in all hospitals in the region, Mr. Lapointe is putting pressure on the government again to have kidney disease specialists located in the Gaspé Peninsula. It would be better than having to travel to Rimouski to meet them.

Currently, Gaspesians must go to the Centre Hospitalier in Rimouski to be seen by a nephrologist.

“I have to go to Rimouski twice a year. It takes me 9 hours to get there for 30 minutes in the office,” says Jean Lapointe, who lives in Gaspé, to justify his request.

“I might have had more signatures, but the CISSS removed them from the institutions,” he says.

“I will never be happy. I could have had 500,000. I would have been happy. But I have more than 10% of the region’s citizens,” he says.

“I will fight until I die. I think of the people that need it. I have had kidney disease for 27 years. I am at stage 4. I do not stop there,” he mentions.

Although Mr. Lapointe does not yet need the hemodialysis service, he points out that there are about fifty patients receiving treatment in the Gaspé Peninsula.

“I think there is something strong as a message. We are starting with the petition. We will submit it in due form to the National Assembly. It will make its way to the Ministry of Health and its parliamentary committee,” indicates the MNA.

The 15-day process will still be launched to see if the parliamentary work will move forward on the subject.

“I think that 10,000 citizens taking the time to sign a petition at the health service level is a strong message. With the status of an aging population, the oldest in Quebec, two orphan regions, I think we have interesting arguments and especially very real needs to move forward with the project,” says Mr. Sainte-Croix.

Quebec currently has 211 nephrologist positions in Quebec, with about 15 vacant positions.

“What I learned is that there is a need within the aging population and for patient mobility,” concludes the elected official.

The wording of the bilingual document states that “whereas the region covered by the CISSS de la Gaspésie is the only one in Quebec not to have a nephrologist assigned to its territory by the Medical Staffing Plan (PEM); whereas patients requiring follow-up by a nephrologist must travel to Rimouski to obtain an in-person meeting, forcing them to travel long hours; we, the signatories, ask the Quebec government to add at least one nephrologist position for the Gaspésie territory in the PEM.”

Mr. Lapointe has been gathering signatures since June, travelling all over the region to collect these signatures.

In April, the CISSS of Gaspé Peninsula indicated that it was considering the possibility of serving the four centres located in Maria, Chandler, Gaspé and Sainte-Anne-des-Monts.

The President and CEO, Martin Pelletier, indicated at the time that the volume of activity did not justify the presence of such a full-time specialist, adding that telemedicine was well-developed.

However, the number of people who have needs is increasing and there may come a time when demand will justify it.

There are currently around 40 hemodialysis treatment seats available throughout the Gaspé Peninsula.

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