Photo: YouTube screenshot Régine Laurent and François Legault on the set of Hello everyone >
Régine Laurent left the set of Hello everyone. The PM Podcast with a smile on your face.
“Who would have refused time with the Prime Minister to discuss everything? ” she launched at the end of a head-to-head of nearly 25 minutes with François Legault.
The head of government had invited the nurse, who had also administered her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, in June 2021, to accompany her in her first steps into the world of podcasting.
The host does not waste a second. He asks the former president of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec to share with him — away from the negotiating tables on the working conditions of public sector employees — not only her impressions, but also solution to the “lack of nurses, especially on certain shifts”, in the health network.
Régine Laurent recommends to the Prime Minister that the work schedules of health professionals be developed in each “facility”, even in each “care unit”.
“I think you're right: you have to go unit by unit,” replies Mr. Legault, seated in a black leather armchair. “It obviously requires flexibility in collective agreements,” he continues, before being politely called to order by his guest. Régine Laurent urges him to favor the term “layout” over that of “flexibility”. He nods.
COVID and exhaustion
How do you attract evening, night or weekend staff? adds François Legault, while holding his microphone with a firm hand. “Maybe we need to put more financial incentives, bonuses…? he suggests. The wire of the microphone goes down along his jacket to get lost in the decor. ” Time off ! People need time”, interrupts Régine Laurent, before insisting on the need to “improve the bonuses […] in place” in addition to granting “bonuses” and “holidays” to professionals ready to work a few evenings or a few nights, for example.
The COVID-19 pandemic has “a bit exhausted the staff”, underlines the Prime Minister aloud in the Montreal press conference room of the Quebec government, which has been refurbished for the occasion. “A little, you say? retorts Régine Laurent. ” A lot a lot ! » regroups François Legault.
The former union leader offers the head of government to allow caregivers to park their vehicles as close as possible to their place of work and to get their hands on a hot meal in the evening and at night. François Legault does not say no.
Régine Laurent takes advantage of her interview, which can be heard on BaladoQuébec and watched on YouTube, to thank François Legault for entrusting her with the presidency of the Special Commission on Children's Rights and Youth Protection, launched in the process. kidnapping and murder of a seven-year-old child in Granby in the spring of 2019. “It was an extraordinary human experience. But you made me suffer too, because listening to certain testimonies, I shouldn't think about it, not even today, ”she confides.
“Love of Quebec culture”
“There are so many topics I want to talk about,” continues François Legault, seeing the time slip away.
He asks Régine Laurent to state her views on ways to ensure the vitality of the French language in Quebec. “Obviously, it's tricky to talk about it, but Quebecers are having fewer children, then, well, it's a social choice. But what that means is that knowledge of French among newcomers becomes a key to the future of French,” he says.
Faced with the surge of English-language content on streaming platforms – which the two refrain from naming – Régine Laurent invites the government to nurture “the love of Quebec culture”, its poets, its chansonniers, with young Quebecers.
François Legault closes the conversation by asking the first guest of his podcast to tell him the title of the last novel she read.
< i>Maple, by David Goudreault (Stanke, 2022), she says, while specifying that “it is not a small novel”.
Indeed, the “work of fiction overflows with violence, explicit references to racism, multiculturalism, homophobia, claustrophobia, hard drugs, misandry, misogyny, sexual exploitation, homicides, feminicides and suicide,” reads the trauma warning printed in the first pages of the whodunit.
“He has a way of writing that is a little bit punchy. […] There are very funny turns of phrase, but it's very hard, what we have in Maple ”, summarizes the Prime Minister.
Prime Ministerial Podcast
“It was exciting, this exchange”, he concludes, determined to record more episodes.
The Ministry of the Executive Council has procured equipment for a total of nearly $20,000 to make the Prime Minister's podcast possible, indicates the director of media relations and digital communications at the Prime Minister's Office, Manuel Dionne.
He says he easily convinced his boss to “join” podcast enthusiasts, who sometimes stay away from traditional media and social networks frequented by the “PM”, such as Twitter, Facebook… and TikTok, where he has suspended its activities until further notice. “[Podcasting] is a way of consuming information that is likely to grow,” he notes.
“Various personalities” will parade every two or three weeks in the head of government's studio, says Manuel Dionne, who is careful not to list them at Devoir. One thing is certain, the guests “will feed the reflection” on various issues of our time, he promises.
