Christian Dubé steps down as Quebec health minister, leaves CAQ

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé is stepping down.

In a Facebook post, Dubé cited difficult negotiations with the unions representing doctors in Quebec as a key reason for his resignation.

In the post, Dubé said he was also leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party and signalled that he was upset with the way the government had backed off on many of its planned health-care reforms.

He will remain as an Independent MNA representing the South Shore riding of La Prairie until the end of his mandate, he said.

Dubé became health minister after a cabinet shuffle in June 2020, steered the province through the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaw significant changes in the way Quebec administers its public health-care network.

He said he had always worked to improve services for Quebecers, but recent negotiations took their toll. Dubé had led a push to overhaul the way doctors are compensated in Quebec, forcing through legislation known as Bill 2.

The bill sparked massive backlash from doctors, who were angry over the legislation that would have tied part of their pay to performance targets.

In his post, Dubé said the government failed to adequately communicate Bill 2’s objectives and impact. “I take full responsibility for my part in this situation,” he said.

The Quebec government finally backtracked on much of Bill 2, coming to an agreement with Quebec’s family doctors, who are set to announce the result of their vote on the agreement on Friday.

The deal was reached only weeks before the controversial legislation was set to go into effect.

Premier François Legault stepped in after negotiations had broken off between Quebec’s family doctors and Dubé, along with Treasury Board President France-Élaine Duranceau.

The agreement backtracked on several key points of the planned health reform, including doing away with penalties tied to performance targets. It also eliminated a controversial plan to assign patients on a colour-coded system based on their level of vulnerability, and removed all articles in the legislation that would have penalized doctors for not following the reforms.

Agreement with doctors 'maintains status quo': Dubé

In his post, Dubé expressed disappointment with the way the government backed down on the measures.

“I must be honest with you,” he said. “Several key elements of Bill 2 were also aimed at modernizing the governance of the health-care system and enabling the government and Santé Québec to fully exercise their role as managers of the public network.

“However, the agreement reached essentially maintains the status quo on governance issues between the government, the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec (FMOQ) and medical directors in the health-care system.”

Dubé said the agreement with the doctors contains important advances, including a plan to incentivize family doctors to take on 500,000 new patients by June 2026.

"These are real gains for patients, and it is important to highlight them," he said.

Still, that commitment would fall far short of the CAQ government's original goal. Initially, the planned health reform included an obligation for family doctor groups, known in French as GMFs, to take on the province’s estimated 1.2 million orphaned patients by January 2027.

The implementation of Bill 2 has been delayed until the end of February to give the CAQ time to amend the legislation.

In a brief statement, Legault said he respected Dubé’s decision and said he had been informed of it at 2 p.m. on Thursday.

“I thank him for his years of public service in one of the most demanding positions in Quebec,” he said. “Our government remains fully committed to improving access to health care for the population. This has always guided our actions, and we will continue our work in this direction.”

Departure makes Legault look bad: opposition

Dubé initially served as a CAQ MNA in 2012 and was re-elected in 2014, but resigned that same year to take a job with Quebec’s pension fund manager. He returned in 2018, when Legault led his CAQ party to their first electoral victory.

Dubé took over the health file in 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. He appeared in near daily news conferences around that time, updating Quebecers on new public health measures.

He helped oversee the COVID-19 vaccine rollout and later headed the creation of Santé Québec, a new Crown corporation intended to centralize much of the management of the health system.

In a statement, Guillaume Cliche-Rivard, the Québec Solidaire critic for health care, said Dubé’s resignation is another example of how Legault’s government is floundering.

“For François Legault, this latest departure is further proof of the failure of his hardline, combative and aggressive approach in recent months, which has failed to put the well-being of Quebecers at the heart of his political agenda,” he said.