Hotel magnate Christiane Germain appointed head of Santé Québec board

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A hotel magnate has been appointed as chairperson of the board of directors of Santé Québec, one of several pro-business appointments to the agency that will manage the province’s beleaguered health system.

Christiane Germain, co-founder of the Groupe Germain and its chain of hotels of the same name, will preside over the 15-person board.

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“Groupe Germain Inc. is a family-run business whose mission is to provide quality customer service and value-added services to its employees, with a human and innovative approach,” according to a Health Ministry statement.

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The Quebec government on Wednesday announced the full composition of the board of Santé Québec, which Health Minister Cristian Dubé has pledged will revolutionize health care in the province. This follows last month’s appointment of Geneviève Biron as head of the powerful agency, a choice that drew a mixed reaction at the time, given that Biron had worked for years for her family business, the Biron Health Group of private medical laboratories.

Before Biron’s appointment, Dubé had said he wanted to recruit a “top gun” from the private sector. And with Biron securing the top job, union leaders and the National Assembly opposition accused Dubé of opening the door to privatization of health care.

But the government also appointed to the Santé Québec board former Parti Québécois health critic Diane Lamarre, an ex-union leader and a longtime patient-rights advocate, ensuring a balance of views.

The appointment of Lamarre, along with patient-rights crusader Seeta Ramdass, will provide truly independent oversight of Santé Québec, predicted one expert.

“I know those two people well and they are not rubber stampers,” said Paul Brunet, executive director of the Conseil pour la protection des malades. “I think this board will do its job, a job that the health ministry hasn’t done in the past 10 to 15 years.”

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Lamarre, the former president of the Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec, developed a reputation as a tough-as-nails health critic for the PQ opposition from 2014 to 2018.

Ramdass, associate director in the office of social accountability and community engagement in the faculty of medicine at McGill University, is an advocate of what she calls “socio-culturally safe medicine” that reflects Quebec’s diversity of racialized, Indigenous and ethnic groups. She had also served on the former board of the McGill University Health Centre and co-authored a landmark report on systemic racism at the MUHC.

Régine Laurent, who chaired a commission that investigated Quebec’s troubled youth-protection system and who had served as president of the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ) from 2009 to 2017, was also selected. Laurent’s appointment raises hopes that the former union firebrand will make sure Santé Québec doesn’t steer the health system more toward privatization, say observers.

Conspicuously absent from the board is any anglophone community representation, an oversight that follows criticism of Bill 15, the legislation that created Santé Québec and which some anglo leaders said weakened their institutions.

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Among the other appointees:

• Dr. David Lussier, a geriatric medicine specialist;
• Dr. Stanley Vollant, an Innu surgeon from Pessamit;
• Gaston Bédard, former Mouvement Desjardins vice-president and president of the Conseil québécois de la coopération et de la mutualité;
• Anna Chif, co-founder of Dialogue Technologies de la Santé Inc.;
• Daniel Gilbert, a consultant and architect who holds a master’s degree in engineering;
• Jean-Luc Gravel, a financial analyst formerly with the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec;
• Michel Lessard, an engineer and founder of SCIM Inc., a business and executive-coaching consulting firm;
• Lise Verreault, a former deputy health minister; and
• Hélène Chartier, an engineer by training and a member of several boards.

Biron and Daniel Paré, a deputy health minister who had been in charge of Quebec’s COVID-19 vaccination program, will also sit on board.

aderfel@postmedia.com

twitter.com/aaron_derfel

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