Legault Could Lift Veil Of Cabinet Secrecy On COVID-19 Response, Expert Says

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Quebec Prime Minister François Legault could, if he wanted, lift the veil of cabinet secrecy covering how the government’s crisis management council dealt with the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, says an expert on constitutional right.

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“The ball is in their court,” said Professor Patrick Taillon of Laval University, after Vincent Marissal, MNA of Québec Solidaire, called on Thursday for that secret to be lifted.

Marissal complained that coroner Géhane Kamel, who is chairing an investigation into long-term care home (CHSLD) deaths during the first wave of the pandemic, is unable to ask all of her questions due to cabinet secrecy.

He said the coroner reached a “pragmatic” agreement with the provincial attorney general, allowing her to question former health minister Danielle McCann, but only on certain issues.

For example, when asked by an attorney for the details of a conversation about personal caregivers, McCann responded, “I can’t answer.”

Marissal accused the government of “hiding” behind cabinet secrecy and called for a public and independent investigation into the handling of the pandemic in Quebec.

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“It kind of dampens questions that might be too intrusive in the decision-making process,” he said. “It’s frustrating. … It shouldn’t be used as an escape.”

The coroner herself raised the issue on November 18 and told the investigating attorneys that cabinet secrecy is enshrined in law and that an attempt to challenge it would bring the investigation to a standstill, as her attorneys would be “in the Superior Court … for months. “

“I favored the approach of completing this investigation … without getting into the strategic discussions of the cabinet,” he said. “It seems to me that for the families (of those who died) this is a lesser evil.”

Taillon says the coroner made a “cost-benefit” analysis of the situation, adding that the lifting of cabinet secrecy is “extremely rare” and that secrecy is “fundamental, constitutional, protected, shielded.”

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Cabinet ministers must be able to speak freely “otherwise nothing would work,” Taillon said. He added that while a partial lifting of that secrecy might be possible on certain topics of interest to the investigation, full disclosure would never occur.

Taillon said there are two reasons against any lifting of cabinet secrecy: first, the opposition would never be satisfied with whatever information is received; second, it would create a precedent.

“A government that begins to play with the secrecy of the cabinet, well, will it do it again? And the fact that he did it (once) would be an argument to do it again. “

On Thursday, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé reiterated his call to opposition parties to await the findings of investigations by the coroner, the Quebec ombudsman and the provincial health commissioner on the government’s handling of the first wave of the pandemic. Dubé suggested that once completed, those findings would show that the government did not have all the necessary information at the start of the pandemic to allow it to “manage it properly.”

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