Public service and private benefits

For 40 days last spring, Quebec’s health minister was a double agent.
From May 17, 2008, until he resigned his cabinet position last June 25, Philippe Couillard was under contract not only to the people of Quebec, but also to Persistence Capital Partners (PCP), a health-services investment corporation that hired him to help them profit off his other employer – us.
And yet, according to Quebec Lobbyists Commissioner André Côté, this secret arrangement with a firm that is positioned to reap fortunes from the privatization of our public healthcare system posed no problem. His report on PCP’s relationship with Couillard – released March 17, a year to the day after the minister and the corporation started negotiating his compensation package – concluded that the company did not contravene Quebec’s Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Act.
According to Côté’s report, PCP owners Sheldon and Stuart Elman were so concerned about breaking the law that they sought legal advice before offering Couillard a deal. They needn’t have worried. Côté’s findings demonstrate that this watchdog has no bark, much less bite.
The timing is important. When the Elmans and Couillard first started talking last March, the company acquired Medisys Health Group. According to a PCP press release, Medisys provides health services to over 4,000 corporations with offices in Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa and Quebec City, and provides medical information services for the Canadian life insurance industry. Medisys is poised reap the rewards of a partially privatized health system in Quebec.
As the powerful head of the government’s biggest ministry, Couillard was second only to Liberal Premier Jean Charest in his ability to influence the way our health system is governed. The record shows that he consistently favoured opening the system to private interests during his five-year reign as minister, despite the overwhelming evidence that privatization will lead to higher costs and uneven treatment for Quebec taxpayers.
For instance, Couillard closed 2,200 long-term care beds, beginning the transfer of Quebec’s frail and infirm into the hands of for-profit care providers. He also ensured that Montreal’s two new university health centres – the so-called superhospitals – would be built as public-private partnerships, or PPPs.
The recent experience of other public institutions in PPP projects demonstrates that costs almost always skyrocket, and that when economic conditions change or deals go sour, the taxpayer is inevitably left holding the bill.
Much worse is that, during the time he was negotiating his financial future with PCP, Couillard’s ministry was preparing to introduce legislation that would allow specialized private medical clinics – PCP’s newly acquired Medisys clinics, for example – to provide a number of privately insured surgical procedures that have until now been fully public. The National Assembly adopted the legislation June 20. Five days later, Couillard resigned as Quebec’s minister of health and social services, omitting to share with reporters that his post-political professional plans were already in place.
Two months would pass before PCP would announce that Couillard had joined the firm as a partner to help it create Canada’s first dedicated private healthcare equity fund. He will now share in the profits from private healthcare that he was instrumental in making possible as an elected public servant.
While the lobbyist commissioner found no fault with PCP’s actions, his mandate didn’t give him the power to examine Couillard’s role in this affair. It was Couillard, after all, who first approached a headhunting firm in late 2007 to offer his services on the open market.
The market has taken a beating since that time, both in monetary value and in public perception of its much-vaunted benefits in all spheres, public or private. Couillard’s actions provide us with yet another cautionary tale in this regard.
The Couillard scandal may yet prove useful, giving the Charest government political cover to change direction in order to avoid costly disasters in our vital healthcare system. Given the economic crisis that is changing the plans of governments around the globe, the public attachment to our healthcare system may help the Liberals slow or even reverse its privatization plans.
It should also be a wake-up call for those with powerful responsibilities in our governments at all levels. When they are working on our dime, their one and only loyalty should be to one boss, and one boss only. Double agents need not apply.