Defending the indefensible

A couple of weeks ago, Pontiac MNA André Fortin rose in the Legislative Assembly to give an impassioned defence of recently fired CISSSO CEO Jean Hébert.
It was a puzzling choice by the opposition health critic to target one of the least popular bureaucrats in the region.
Keep in mind, Hébert was appointed by the Liberals in March 2015 and was tasked with implementing difficult cuts to the healthcare system in the region.

In 2014, with credit rating agencies ready to pounce and downgrade the province’s financial rating, the Liberals decided that aggressive cuts would have to be made in order to present a balanced budget in 2015 and appease the ratings agencies.
Gaétan Barrette, the minister of health at the time, was given the unenviable job of cutting entire levels of bureaucracy, among other things.
Those cuts had wide ranging effects, as many people in the Pontiac can attest.
Decision-making power was centralized in urban hubs, where the understanding of how a rural facility works might not be top of mind.
It didn’t take long for the opposition to start.
Here in the Pontiac, the last straw came when CISSSO attempted to implement paid parking at the Shawville Hospital.
Residents quickly mobilized and a social media group dedicated to the region’s healthcare popped up and quickly amassed more than 2,000 followers in a matter of weeks.
To Hébert’s credit, CISSSO brass listened to residents and scrapped the plan for paid parking (although staff still have to pay).
But the unpopularity of both Hébert and Barrette go beyond angry taxpayers.
Former Ontario Deputy Health Minister, Paul Lamarche, criticized the reforms as “the most scatterbrained, and certainly the one it will take longest to recover from.”
Several healthcare unions also targeted Barrette specifically – ambulance drivers and nurses mainly – for increasing their workload which eventually led to increased levels of employee burnout.
On top of that, Hébert was the object of scorn from the Warden of MRC Vallée-de-la-Gatineau, Chantal Lamarche, when she called for his resignation in December.
When elected officials are publicly musing about the need to fire a civil servant, there’s something wrong.
Residents were told that the cuts were necessary for the long-term viability of the Quebec healthcare system. Four years later, CISSSO is facing a $12.7 million budget deficit and residents are left wondering if consolidation actually saves money.
In response to those complaints, the newly elected CAQ government appointed Sylvain Gagnon to compile a report about the state of the Outaouais healthcare system.
One of the recommendations was to fire Hébert.
Which brings us back to Fortin’s tone-deaf critique of the government’s decision to relieve Hébert of his duties.
“I wrote homework longer than that,” Fortin mused about the length of the 18-page report submitted by Gagnon.
This editorial is barely a page and it’s covered many of the reasons why Hébert needed to go. Government decisions shouldn’t be subject to a word count.
Not to mention the fact that Hébert is a Liberal appointee. Any time CISSSO appears in a negative news story – which isn’t rare – Hébert serves as a constant reminder of the healthcare cuts to the region.
It’s true that getting rid of one executive won’t be the silver bullet that solves everything, but it makes perfect sense for a newly elected party to come in and appoint someone with a fresh perspective and far less baggage than Hébert.
Fortin would have been better served by thanking Hébert for his service under admittedly tough circumstances.
Instead, by rising in the legislature to defend your own appointee, despite nearly universal unpopularity, Fortin raises the question: who is he listening to?

Chris Lowrey