André Fortin comments on negotiations with public sector unions

André Fortin comments on negotiations with public sector unions

In a French-language interview with CHIP 101.9 last week, Pontiac MNA André Fortin said he was eager for an agreement to be reached within the public service, particularly in the field of education, given the complications for parents.

“Well, indeed, people organize themselves as best they can when there is a strike at school,” he said (translated). “Mine are in Quebec this week, they will be in parliamentary committee with me. I don’t know if they’re going to have that much fun, but everyone finds solutions, whether it’s with grandparents or community groups. Everyone finds solutions to keep the children busy. There are some who come to work with their parents, it’s part of education, I imagine, but it’s a conflict which is unfortunate. I listened to the words of the president of the union this morning, they are right on one point, which is that the groups must talk to each other, the government and the union groups must be able to meet, be able to talk to each other, can exchange then at the moment, but we do not seem close to an agreement at all, the government continues to offer less than inflation.”

During the discussion, Fortin expressed weighed in on the news of the Legault government offering a subsidy of $5-7 million to the Los Angeles Kings in the National Hockey League.

“Well, in fact, we have been looking at the government since the by-election that the Parti Québécois won in Quebec, then we find that the government has lost their bearing completely,” he said (translated). “It’s a CAQ government, in recent years, we felt that there was still a certain political sense, they were capable of judging the public mood, but here, it seems that they are in full panic mode. The day after the election, they came back with their bridge project in Quebec, worth about $10 billion, they announced, they attacked the English-speaking universities, now they are giving money to the Kings from Los Angeles, not to a Quebec Canadien team, to the Los Angeles Kings to come and play two preparatory games. I also liked listening to the Nordiques at the time, and it was a lot of fun, the Canadien/Nordique rivalry and all that, then we would start it again any time, but the government was throwing money out the window to give the Los Angeles Kings a subsidy to play games, not even games that mean anything, they’re preseason games.”

The full (French-language) interview with Fortin is available here.