Fréchette presents her government's first record, while Outaouais waits for fair share

Tashi Farmilo

Premier Christine Fréchette closed her first parliamentary session on June 12 in Quebec City by presenting a review of her new government's early actions, arguing she has already delivered for Quebecers on the cost of living, the economy, infrastructure, public services and the defence of the French language, with a provincial election now set for this fall. For households in the Outaouais, the review is worth reading closely, because the region has sat near the bottom of Quebec's health-funding table for years and much of what the premier celebrated lands somewhere else.

Fréchette is still early in her tenure. She became premier in April after winning the leadership of the governing Coalition Avenir Québec, replacing François Legault, who stepped down with his party low in the polls. She is the second woman to lead Quebec. Voters head to the polls on October 5, with her party currently behind its rivals.

The single most important item for this region is in the infrastructure file. Fréchette signed a set of agreements with the federal government worth close to $10 billion, and roughly $1 billion of that is earmarked for priority hospital projects. The future university hospital for the Outaouais is on that list. That matters because the Outaouais is one of the only regions in Quebec without a teaching hospital of its own, which is part of why so many local patients have long crossed the river to Ottawa for specialized care. The project has been promised before, so attaching it to real federal dollars is the closest thing in the review to concrete progress for the region.

Several affordability measures will also reach local pockets. A one-time payment of up to $200 went out in June through the solidarity tax credit, a refund aimed at lower- and modest-income Quebecers, with the amount scaled by household type. The government lifted the sales tax on certain grocery and pharmacy basics, and it trimmed roughly $50 from vehicle registration renewals, a discount applied automatically starting in September. A new credit reimburses up to $5,875 of the welcome tax, the one-time fee buyers pay on a property purchase, for a first home. A plan to convert 5,000 unsubsidized daycare spots into subsidized ones carries extra weight in a region where closeness to Ottawa has driven up rents and home prices.

Then there is the part the review leaves out. The National Assembly formally acknowledged the region's health-funding shortfall in 2019, and it has only widened since, reaching about $348 million a year by the latest count from the Observatoire du développement de l'Outaouais. This spring brought no real correction. When the new provincial health agency, Santé Québec, divided money among the regions for 2026-2027, the Outaouais authority received an increase of about 1.4 per cent, while a region such as Lanaudière saw closer to 9 per cent.

Beyond those files, the session produced a handful of province-wide measures, including a million added hours of home support for seniors and the reopening of the Quebec Experience immigration program. One health promise the government leans on, a deal to attach 500,000 more Quebecers to a family doctor by this summer, has not eased the picture here, where close to a third of patients still have none.

The final week was a legislative sprint, with 18 bills on the order paper and the clock running down before the campaign. Two stand out among those that cleared. Quebec banned the sale of energy drinks to anyone under 16, becoming the first jurisdiction in North America to do so, with the rules taking effect in December. It also passed the Gabie Renaud law, named for a woman killed last year by a partner with a history of violence, which lets police warn a person that an intimate partner poses a risk.

Two high-profile bills were shelved instead. The CAQ's signature plan to write a Quebec constitution was abandoned for lack of time, after opposition from First Nations leaders, legal experts and the other parties. The other was the expansion of the French-language charter to adult and vocational education, which would have moved an estimated 27,000 students into the French-language system before the Liberals came out against it.