“The energy and audacity to shake up the status quo is gone,” an emotional Youri Chassin said at a news conference announcing he will sit as an independent.
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QUEBEC — Premier François Legault recognized Thursday that some members of his caucus are showing signs of impatience with the state of Quebec’s public finances, but said he does not fear more departures like that of St-Jérôme MNA Youri Chassin.
Reacting to Chassin’s spectacular decision to leave caucus Thursday and sit as an independent, Legault said his team is going to need to be patient as the road ahead is long and complex.
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Chassin was the fourth Coalition Avenir Québec MNA to leave since 2023.
“There may be an impatience, and I share it,” Legault told reporters shortly after Chassin slammed the door on the CAQ. Chassin said the party has drifted from its centre-right roots and become like other parties that believe the way to solve problems is by shovelling more money at them.
Chassin also said some other MNAs with the party applauded him last week when, behind closed doors at the CAQ caucus in Rimouski, he criticized the government’s current agenda.
Legault said he checked with the caucus Thursday morning and “I am told that I don’t have to worry.”
“There were different reasons for each of (the four departures),” he said. “Still, I think the number is very reasonable.”
Legault said last week in Rimouski that he did not anticipate any more departures following the high-profile resignation of economy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon, who left saying he no longer felt motivated enough to do the job.
Chassin proved him wrong.
In addition to Chassin and Fitzgibbon, former Jean-Talon MNA Joëlle Boutin and Arthabaska MNA Eric Lefebvre have left the CAQ caucus since the summer of 2023.
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Legault said he was disappointed but not surprised by Chassin’s decision, because he knew Chassin disagreed with a number of government policies.
“I have known for a while that certain things were bugging him,” Legault said.
He said the two met for 30 minutes Wednesday evening in Quebec City. Legault said Chassin, an economist who is part of the right-wing side of the CAQ and was first elected in 2018, tried to convince the premier to force Quebec’s powerful labour unions to reveal their internal finances — something he said he was not willing to do because it would “spark an atomic war.”
Legault said Chassin also complained the reforms to the health-care system are taking too long for citizens to see any benefits, and that Quebec’s five-year march back to balanced books from its $11-billion deficit is way too long.
Not satisfied with Legault’s answers, Chassin left that meeting to write a blistering open letter — published in Le Journal de Québec Thursday — in which he rips into his party, saying it has lost its rudder after six years in office.
“We fell back on the old recipe, which consists of heaping money on problems instead of seeking to do things differently,” Chassin writes. “Despite this, citizens do not see the results either in extra places in daycare or to obtain government documents or in the expansion and modernization of the St-Jérôme Hospital.”
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“I tried everything I could internally, in the party, with cabinet ministers and last night with the premier,” Chassin said at his own Thursday morning news conference, where he announced he was quitting. “I tried everything to get us back to the CAQ agenda.
“I did not succeed, and my conclusion is that we have arrived at mid-mandate and are in the same situation. I can’t look voters in the eye and say the government is doing good things for Quebec. It is time for me to leave.
“Today, I can no longer defend the CAQ before my voters. The energy and audacity to shake up the status quo is gone.”
Chassin insisted he has no plans to join another party, such as the right-wing Quebec Conservatives, and will complete his mandate as an independent. He will keep his CAQ party membership card “in case.”
There have been rumours in the past that Chassin was disappointed in not being named to the cabinet, which the premier refused to confirm Thursday.
In pleading for patience from his caucus, Legault noted that much of the government’s agenda is stalled because there is no agreement on the way forward in health care with Quebec’s nurses or general practitioners.
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The easy way out of the financial hole would be to increase taxes and cut services, Legault said, but he added those options are not on the table.
“Some would like us to return to balanced books faster,” he said. “But at the same time, when they are asked what spending they would cut, they have no answer.”
He insisted a gradual reduction of the deficit is responsible and pragmatic.
“We have two years left (before the election),” Legault said. “Things are maybe not moving as fast as some would like, but I think we are going to get there. And I guarantee you we will not surrender” to unions opposing changes in the health system.
Finance Minister Eric Girard said Quebec’s budgetary situation is “under control and being well managed,” while other CAQ MNAs downplayed the loss of Chassin.
“I respect his decision,” said Beauce-Sud MNA Samuel Poulin. “We will continue to work for Quebecers.”
But the opposition pounced, with Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon rising in the legislature to congratulate Chassin for acting on his principles.
“It’s clear nobody can trust the promises of the CAQ,” St-Pierre Plamondon said. “The CAQ MNAs are saying it themselves.”
“This is a huge red flag on the state of public finances,” added interim Liberal leader Marc Tanguay. “It’s a sign (Legault is) losing control.”
Chassin’s departure capped a difficult first week for Legault in the National Assembly’s fall session. On Tuesday, Hydro-Québec CEO Michael Sabia, appearing before a committee, criticized the government for handing over more precious megawatts of electricity to foreign companies instead of Quebec ones that need more power to drop their use of fossil fuels.
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