It all started when my telephone rang in the middle of the night. Someone was at the main door to the building asking me to unlock the door. He said he was delivering groceries. I let him in. It then occurred to me that he could be an intruder and that he could harm one of my neighbours. If so, it would be my fault. I dialed 9-1-1. Two police officers, a man, and a woman came to my door. I told them that I had foolishly let someone into the building and asked them to check the corridors. They didn’t check the corridors. I also told them that persons did ring the door to my apartment occasionally and then disappeared. But matters were different. This time, I had let a person enter the building.
They asked several questions, reassured me, and left. The building was quiet. The next morning, I realized that one of my neighbours had played a joke on me. Who else would know that my groceries are delivered and by whom? Later in the day, I phoned the police and spoke with a person who knew about this incident. I said that, in my opinion, a neighbour had played a joke on me. The gentleman wanted to know how I felt. I was fine. My neighbours were not the target, I was the target.
I have since wondered whether this incident is related to Covid-19. I have been inside my apartment, alone, for a year. However, someone delivers groceries once a week.
The Covid-19 Vaccine
I did leave the apartment two days ago. On Tuesday I received a letter from the government informing me personally that the vaccination programme had begun and that all I had to do was telephone the number I was given or go online to make an appointment. I dialed the telephone number and was vaccinated the following day. Covid-19 is so aggressive that all Canadians will be vaccinated before June 24, the first injection, if AstraZeneca is used. That goal is realistic for Quebec. The team is working so efficiently that several hundred persons are vaccinated in a matter of hours. The government hired a small army.
After the injection, one sits for 15 minutes and, if all goes well, one disinfects one’s hands and goes home. A gentleman called a cab for me. He made me sit comfortably while I waited and he helped me get into the cab safely.
The AstraZeneca vaccine was used. My mouth was very dry after the injection, but there were bottles of water. I was given water. I was not otherwise affected.
Long Covid
The Washington Post reports that many victims of Covid-19 who have been cured are not able to return to a normal life. I suspected this would happen. I caught the H1N1 virus in early February 1976. It triggered Myalgic Encephalomyelitis which did not relent, except for very brief periods, for forty-four years. ME ended when Covid-19 began. Long-Covid patients are vaccinated and it is reported that many patients start feeling better. Do not look upon them as malingerers.
Would that awareness of complications had been present in 1976! I could handle a normal workload by going to bed early and living cautiously. But my workload grew to include too many areas of literature, and the creation of language lab components. I fell to exhaustion and was not replaced, which shouldn’t have happened. I was then maneuvered into selling my house and leaving Nova Scotia. Two years later, I was fooled into accepting an arrangement that ended my tenure without my realizing it. I still ache.
Conclusion
Let’s just say that Covid-19 has been a curse, but that the government vaccination programme is very rapid. I have not experienced adverse effects. As for my neighbours, I sent management a letter they will never forget.
I have been looking for French Canadian folklore and traditional music. These sites do not appear immediately. Moreover, I was far from Quebec for forty years and I had been trained to be a concert pianist, which means I was learning Bach’s Preludes and Fugues. There was very little time left for learning folklore and I wasn’t hearing any music from Quebec on the radio. In 1960, the French-language CBC, Radio-Canada or Ici Radio Canada, had yet to reach the West coast.
Les Voix du Vent are also known as Le Vent du Nord. Le Vent du Nord plays Celtic music. However, I am featuring a French song that tells a story.
The Story
The story is about a servant girl who wanted to be as beautiful as her mistress (as in master). She went to the pharmacist, l’apothicaire, to purchase makeup, du fard. He prepared a powder and told her not to look at herself in a mirror after applying the fard. The next day, le lendemain, she met her cavalier, a boyfriend, or a man she wished to attract. He told her that her face was black, black as a chimney. She was barbouillée (smeared). She returned to the apothecary who explained that he sold her coal. Servants should not try to look like their mistress.
Above is Louis-Claude Daquin’s “Le Coucou” (The Cuckoo). Les Grands Hurleurs’ “Coucou” is an arrangement of Louis-Claude Daquin‘s “Coucou.” Daquin’s “Coucou” is not folklore, but it borders on traditional music and music we call “classical.” Daquin composed several Noëls, Christmas Carols. Christmas Carols are not looked upon as “folklore,” but they are traditional music. Christians sing Carols on Christmas Day and during the Christmas period. For Christians, Christmas commemorates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, but it is also on or near the Winter solstice, the day of the longest night. Today is Candlemas(La Chandeleur), a festival oflightsand currently Groundhog Day (le Jour de la Marmotte).
Feasts are celebrated according to a natural calendar. This begins with the degree of light and darkness: two solstices, and in the middle of the two solstices (Christmas and la Saint-Jean) are the Vernal equinox of Spring and the Autumnal equinox (Michaelmas). And to return to traditional music, it is associated with feasts that are celebrated according to the above-mentioned natural calendar. Noëls are performed during the Christmas season.
However, Books of Hours are not pieces of music. Noëls are, and they probably constitute traditional music. Then come Liturgical music and the Canonical Hours.
Les Grands Hurleurs play an arrangement of “Le Coucou,” composed by Louis-Claude Daquin (1694-1772)[1]
This is a very short post. It features Nicolas Pellerin‘s Grands Hurleurs (howlers). We heard the Grands Hurleurs in Quebec Folklore: Celtic Roots. In Le Coucou, Nicolas uses podorythmie.
I started researching podorythmie. It may have Acadian origins, which surprises me. I lived in Nova Scotia for 22 years. The Scots and Acadians are very close.
Portrait of Several Musicians and Artists by François Puget. Traditionally the two main figures have been identified as Lully and the librettist Philippe Quinault. (Louvre) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Amanda Keesmaat, cello | Pierre-Alexandre Saint-Yves, voice, flutes, chalumeau | Patrick Graham, percussions| Seán Dagher, Musical Direction, voice, cittern | Alex Kehler, nickelharpa, violin la Nef.com (fr/en)
La Nef & Les Charbonniers de l’enfer
In earlier posts, I wrote about the Celtic influence on Quebec music. For instance, Quebecers play reels. I also featured legendary violinist Yehudi Menuhin playing with the late Jean Carignan, Quebec’s most prominent fiddler, in his days. We also heard an old French song, Le Navire de Bayonne, interpreted by La Nef and Les Charbonniers de l’enfer. A characteristic of La Nef and Les Charbonniers de l’enfer is enhanced rhythm. Groups may use podorythmie, a form of step dancing.
La Nef is a Montreal ensemble founded in 1991. The Charbonniers de l’enfer was founded in 1994. My last post featured soprano Meredith Hall and La Nef, interpreting Robert Burns‘ My Love is a Red, Red Rose. Robert Burns drew his inspiration from traditional music. The current répertoire of Quebec ensembles includes not only the traditional music of Quebec but also that of other cultures. Under la Nef.com (fr) or lanefeng.com (en), you will find a list of the music La Nef has recorded and possibly the music itself.
The music embedded below features both La Nef and Les Charbonniers de l’enfer. Meredith Hall is the group’s soprano.
One could not divide the thirty acres between all male children. One male child was expected to become a priest, but other male children needed land and could not move to Ontario. After Confederation, the population of Canada, except Quebec, had to be English and Protestant. Orangists prevented French-speaking Canadians from settling elsewhere. They could no longer be educated in French. That was a disaster.
In order to earn a living, many Québécois moved North and cleared land. They had to “faire de la terre,” make land. Some tried to settle in or near Sudbury, Ontario. The school question surfaced. However, some went to Abitibi-Témiscamingue. This area was located in eastern Ontario, but it became part of Québec where the landless found land they could clear. The Church favoured “making land.” This is what le curé Labelle, an influential parish priest, suggested to the landless. It was the patriotic choice.
Exodus
When people are hungry, they look for a place where they can earn a living. Quebec had very few skilled businessmen. In the early days of the colony, New France had a business class consisting of Huguenots mainly. Champlain was a Huguenot. They left Quebec in 1685, when Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598). They had to leave New France because Cardinal Richelieu started building absolutism. In Richelieu’s opinion, the requirements for absolutism were one King, one language and one religion. He established la Compagnie des Cent-Associés, the Company of One Hundred Associates.
The Seigneurial System
The Seigneurial System had not been truly abolished in 1854. The habitants who had not bought their thirty acres had to pay rent à perpétuité, permanently. This was a form of slavery: debt bondage. In 1935, the Québec government created the Syndicat national du rachat des rentes seigneuriales, or SNRRS (National Commission for the Repurchase of Seigneurial Rentes). The SNRRS would pay the habitants‘ debt in part.
French Cathedral, Quebec City, Mary M. Chaplin, 1839 – C856
This is a picture of an old Quebec-City. It has its cathedral. Every little town in Quebec had a magnificent church. However, in the days of New France, the population lived mostly on each side of the St Lawrence River, on narrow but deep land tracts called Seigneuries. Quebec consisted of seigneuries, a feudal system. The Seigneur collected “rentes” (rent) and the Church, la dîme (tithe). There were three main cities: Québec, Trois-Rivières and Montréal, each located on the North bank of the St. Lawrence River. During the winter, one could travel on thick ice from one of the cities to another. One used a cart and horses. When summer came, boats could be used. However, there was a road, le chemin du Roy/Roi.
Long Tracts of Land
Manoir Dionne à Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière (The Canadian Encyclopedia)
The Seigneurial system survived until 1854, but it had been established in 1627. This was a “peau de chagrin.” La Peau de chagrin(1831) is the title of a novel by Honoré de Balzac. The peau (skin) grows smaller and smaller and its owner runs out of luck.
Similarly, thirty acres grow smaller and smaller with each generation. The children have to find a job. When the system was abolished, censitaires were given a choice. They could purchase their thirty acres, or pay rent for life. Le Seigneur did not lose anything, but those who paid a rente were impoverished. The amount of money renters had to pay is enormous:
In 1928, an inquiry launched by the Bureau de la statistique du Québec (Statistics Québec) showed that rentes were still being collected in 190 seigneuries (for a total capital value of $3,577,573). The annual payments made by nearly 60,000 families amounted to more than $200,000.
When an « habitant » (usually a farmer) saw the priest arrive, he wanted to hide. He knew it was time to pay the tithe. The Church collected money at mass and through the tithe. Quebec literature tells this drama in Ringuet’s Trente arpents, but also in other novels. (See Canadiana.2, one of my pages.) The Internet kept my writings. Would you believe I have been an influencer?
Conclusion
On these words, I must leave. United Empire Loyalists were given plenty of land, while our little habitant could not survive on the ancestral acres. There was a huge exodus to the United States. One million French-speaking Canadians left Canada. My grandfather did. He did not speak French. His wife stayed in Canada, living next to the railroad. The men in the train threw what they could, so the one cast iron stove had something to burn.
Louis Hémon’sMaria Chapdelaine (1913) depicts the three choices of French Canadians. Go north and clear land, work as a king of voyageur, or move to the United States. My father could not remember his father. So, my mother found where he lived and we traveled to Massachusetts. The trip was a great success. We met a wonderful man and his wife and continued to go to Athol two or three times a year. We learned never to judge a man, unless we had walked in his moccasins.
My grandfather had seven cats and a large dog. He also had a cow and une basse-cour, a yard for the hens. He married the woman who sold him her property. She was in charge of the house.
À claire fontaine in an arrangement by Stephen Smith, sung by Musica Intima, Vancouver
I am revisiting my last post: Chronicling Covid-19 (14): The Mask (15 May 2020). It is not entirely clear and it did not address a serious matter: anxiety among English-speaking Montrealers. The relevant video is at the foot of this post.
I will write first that I did not vote for monsieur Legault, the leader of Coalition Avenir Québec, EN CAQ FR, a party Premier Legault founded.
As we have seen, there are very real problems in Quebec. For instance, the pandemic has brought to the fore the lack of safety in long-term care facilities. This problem exists elsewhere. There has just been a flare-up in Hamilton, Ontario, at the Rosslyn Retirement Residence.
In Quebec, however, 4 out of 5 victims of Covid-19 lived in long-term care facilities, CHSLDs, located in Montreal. The first two persons taken to the Montreal Jewish General Hospital were not diagnosed with Covid-19, but everything soon changed. Further arrivals to the Emergency Room (ER) were infected with Covid-19.
Other victims were the poor living in Montreal North (Montréal-Nord).
Frontline Workers
syndicates
sense of duty
Moreover, at the very beginning of his statement, monsieur Legault asked health-workers who were infected, but had recovered, to return to their duties. This I should have noted. The pandemic revealed considerable reluctance on the part of Quebec doctors to be frontline workers. Their syndicate, these are powerful in Quebec, negotiated fees that could total approximately $2,500.00 per day, which is a large amount of money. Too many lack empathy, a requirement in the case of health workers.
Monsieur Legault is taking the responsibility for his province’s lack of preparedness and will correct problems, such as unsafe long-term care facilities, to the extent that this problem can be corrected. Quebec quickly ran out personal protective equipment, as did other provinces. But there can be no doubt that he had difficulty recruiting health-care workers. Fortunately, as you know, monsieur Legault was able to call on the Canadian Armed Forces. Moreover, there were volunteers. A group of immigrants wanted to help in exchange for being granted citizenship. Would that I could find that video! This is question I must explore further. As well, there were volunteers who cooked free meals that were distributed to various houses and to the frontline workers. Charitable donations should cover the cost of these meals.
The demiurgic figure Urizenprays before the world he has forged by William Blake. (Wikipedia)
Rights and Freedoms
Bill 21
secularization versus protection
anxiety among anglophones
bilingualism
I should also comment on the worries concerning rights and freedoms, expressed by the lady, a journalist who asked a question, or questions, following Premier Legault’s statement. She may have been referring to Quebec’s unthinkable Bill 21 (MacLean’s).
There are other problems in Quebec, some of which the response to the pandemic have exposed. However, after he was elected Premier of Quebec, François Legault and members of his government passed Bill 21, which promotes absolute laïcité, secularization. Monsieur Legault’s predecessor, Dr Philippe Couillard, had attempted to forbid the wearing of clothes that impeded identification of a person. He wanted to protect Quebec citizens, but the matter of rights and freedoms was raised.
If one clicks on burqa, one can see that it is a garment that covers the face and which could also be used to conceal a weapon. Monsieur Couillard was the Premier of Quebec (Premier Ministre) at a time, not so distant, when terrorist attacks were frequent. Protection, not secularization, was Premier Couillard’s goal. However, monsieur Legault and his government introduced Bill 21, An Act respecting the laicity of the State, which was assented on 16 June 2019. Bill 21 affects Civil Servants and it could be considered as an infringement on “rights and freedoms” in Quebec. Muslim women wear veils.
Finally, in a survey conducted recently by Léger Marketing, it was determined that English-speaking Quebecers (68%) feared Covid-19 more than French-speaking citizens of Montreal and Quebec as a province (47%). At first, I could not understand the lady’s question. Canadians were lifting the lockdown when the coronavirus was still active. Consequently, Premier Legault urged the citizens of Quebec to wear a facemask as a protective measure. Who wants to breathe in the virus? In short, the facemask has nothing to do with Quebec’s secularization and Bill 22. But the notion came to the lady’s mind that monsieur Legault’s request could restrict personal rights and freedoms. It didn’t. As I noted, it was a safety measure.
But Christopher Skeete, the parliamentary assistant on relations with English-speaking Quebecers, stated that an “agreement” had been reached and that 800,000 English versions of the government’s COVID-19 self-care guide were sent out. I have my copies. As quoted above, Christopher Skeete, Quebec government’s point man on anglophone affairs “does not see the purpose of dividing the province by language when it comes to gauging the population’s fear of contracting COVID-19.”
In the days of Covid-19, a Premier of Quebec addresses both the province’s French-speaking citizens and its English-speaking citizens. Monsieur Legault, Quebec’s top doctor, Horacio Arruda, and Danielle McCann, Quebec’s Minister of Health, addressed the press in both French and English, as did monsieur Legault.
So far politics has played no role in the pandemic, and there were no significant Anglo-French skirmishes. Monsieur Legault may have expressed impatience, but he has managed the pandemic very well, in both English and French and has followed the same guidelines as other Premiers.
Conclusion
The pandemic in Quebec has made several issues surface, including bilingualism. It would be my opinion, however, that the worst issue monsieur Legault faced was his nearly futile call for frontline workers and helpers. The Quebec government was dealing with a humanitarian disaster. By the way, some schools have reopened. There is a school next to my building, I could hear the children during recreation.
The latest numbers of confirmed and presumptive COVID-19 cases in Canada as of 5:34 p.m. on May 17, 2020:
There are 77,001 confirmed and presumptive cases in Canada.
Total: 77,001 (11 presumptive, 76,990 confirmed including 5,782 deaths, 38,552 resolved)
(19 May 2002: 78,072 cases, 5,842 deaths, 39,228 resolved)
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 17, 2020.
I think the time has come to delight English-speaking Quebecers and everyone else with Le Temps des cerises, (The Days of Cherries, Wikipedia). Our colleague Manuel Cerdá (A mi manera) wrote a post about it: Le Temps des cerises.
« L’art enseigne, renseigne. Il révèle l’âme. Nul doute qu’il a le pouvoir d’ordonner en un cosmos le chaos de l’inconscient. D’un désordre, d’une souffrance et d’un déséquilibre, il conduit à la stabilité, à l’harmonie et à la joie. »
(Ozias Leduc, tiré d’une lettre à Paul-Émile Borduas, 1943)
[Art teaches, informs. It reveals the soul. It has, no doubt, the power of ordering into a cosmos the chaos of the unconscious. From disorder, pain, and imbalance, it leads to stability, harmony and joy.]
In a very recent post, entitled Comforting Thoughts, I inserted a link to an article published by the BBC. I am quoting, first, a paragraph from my post, and, second, the article published by the BBC. Nurses are overworked and there are families who do not, or cannot, for lack of money, or time, participate in the care given a mother, a father, a brother, and other members of their family.
“[w]e stayed with him [my brother] the entire afternoon and the little group returned to the hospital in the evening. I stayed home. I don’t want to know how much we paid in parking fees, but if members of his family did not help my brother, he would require the services of at least one professional twenty-four hours a day. A nurse came in to give him morphine and she obviously kept an eye on us, but he wasn’t alone.”
Researching Health Care, I found this article published by the BBC (UK). Home news from abroad. Doctors in Quebec earn approximately three times, perhaps more, the salary of a University teacher in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and they enjoy a lifestyle most of us can only dream of.
When I moved to Quebec, I could not find a doctor. I phoned and phoned and phoned. I was put on several waiting lists, to no avail. The doctors whose office I called always had “more patients than he or she could handle.” I ended up contacting the University of Sherbrooke’s Medical School. A secretary made an appointment for me at a CLSC, Fr / En, a public clinic. I would see an intern. No problem! My intern was a fine doctor and he was supervised. When his internship was over, he asked his supervisor to take me as a patient.
And I am not the only person facing this problem. Last week, I met a young woman who had waited 4 years to find a doctor and was sitting in the waiting area of a public clinic, or a CLSC(Centre local de services communautaires). She would see an intern. I reassured her. She had come to the right place.
An Aristocracy
As I wrote in my post, doctors were becoming an aristocracy. They work from 9 to 5 (9 to 17 hours) or less, and they may be on call. Some doctors ask that medicine not be discussed in their presence outside working hours: it would be too stressful. They need their rest and a private life.
Of course, but should people go untreated and nurses be so burdened that patient care is neglected. Nurses are leaving their chosen profession.
“Doctors from the Canadian province of Quebec have shocked the world by turning down a pay rise.
Why would anyone turn down a pay rise?
For doctors from Quebec, the answer is simple: patient care.
An eight-year, retroactive deal struck in February would see about 20,000 of the province’s medical specialists and general practitioners receive an annual salary increase ranging from about 1.4% to 1.8% each year [bold characters are mine].
That would mean that the province, which subsidises the bulk of doctors’ salaries, would be on the hook for an additional C$1.5bn ($1.2bn, £840m) by 2023.
It is a fair agreement, according to the unions representing Quebec doctors, who pushed for the deal with the province.
But not all physicians are on board – more than 700 physicians, both GPs and specialists, have signed a petition from Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public [Quebec Doctors for the Public System] saying they do not want the rise, and they would rather have the extra money go to patient care and services. The group represents doctors in the province who strongly support public access to healthcare.
Meanwhile, the province’s nurses are fighting for better working conditions and salaries. A picture of a bleary-eyed nurse posted on Facebook went viral and was shared more than 50,000 times in January.
“I’m so stressed that I have back troubles, enough to keep me from sleeping. I don’t want to go to work because I dread the workload that awaits me,” wrote Émilie Ricard, who said she alone was in charge of caring for 70 patients in one shift. “I come home and I’m crying with fatigue.”
We, Quebec doctors…
“We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the healthcare workers and to provide health services worthy [of] the people of Quebec,” read the letter.
This sentiment has struck a chord with people across Canada and abroad.
At home, the Quebec doctors have been praised by officials, but some of their colleagues have kept mum.
“If they feel they are overpaid, they can leave the money on the table. I guarantee you I can make good use of it,” said the province’s health minister Gaétan Barrette.
Quebec’s physician unions have not commented publicly about the call for less than the agreed-upon pay rise.
In Canada, healthcare is public and run by the provinces, not the federal government, which means that salaries can vary quite a lot from province to province.
The average salary for a physician nationwide was $339,000, according to the most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
In Ontario, Canada’s largest province by population, the average specialist made C$403,500; in Quebec, they made C$367,000.
Conversely, family physicians in Quebec made C$255,000, while in Ontario they made C$311,000.
The Quebec doctors’ rebuff of a pay rise has put them at odds with many of their colleagues in other provinces.
The Ontario Medical Association has been fighting for higher wages with the province for years.
The province has cut fees twice in three years and the association still has not negotiated a contract with the province.”
End of quotation.
Conclusion
Why should medical doctors be paid three to four times a university teacher’s salary. I suspect that many doctors, those who are doctors mostly for the money, were disgruntled when the Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public refused a rise in salary. They may have been motivated to vote Dr Couillard out of office. As for nurses who had to look after 70 patients, they may have believed that the premier was at fault. Not quite!
In Quebec, future doctors enter Medical School after grade 11 + 2 years in a CEGEP (General and Vocational College). They can start earning money earlier than doctors living elsewhere. They are also protected by powerful syndicates. But so few doctors are available that when one retires, his or her patients are devastated. Yet, between 2005-15, a physician’s salary doubled while nurses looked after 70 patients.
What about the wages of an overworked nurse, old-age pensions, and disability benefits? A nurse’s salary does not double in ten years. As for disability benefits, they never go up. The amount is 60% of the salary one earns the last year one works. After 15 years, one’s financial security is endangered. At age 73, now 74, I had to take a mortgage to buy a one-bedroom apartment. But I’m not complaining.
—ooo—
I thank the doctors, the Médecins québécois pour le Régime public, who turned down a rise in salary and I am glad that the working conditions of nurses have been brought to the attention of the world.
Taking care of Jean-Pierre was a full-time occupation, and the nurse assigned to him was looking after other patients. She was a fine nurse, but she was probably relieved to see that members of Jean-Pierre’s family were taking care of him. She did not want to neglect a patient. She told us about the little beds available to family and friends who preferred not to leave a dying relative. We were happy to learn that there were little beds for the family.
Jean-Pierre died graciously. He thanked the staff for the fine care he had received. He thanked the priest who administered the Last Rites and he told all of us that he had simply reached his expiry date: sa date d’expiration, which is a date all of us have to face.
Colour Sketch for the Decoration of the Chapel of the Bishop’s Palace, Sherbrooke: “The Annunciation,” Ozias Leduc, 1922. (Musée des beaux-arts du Canada/National Galery of Canada)
Yesterday, my nephew François took me to see my brother Jean-Pierre. He is hospitalized in the very large building I showed in an earlier post.
When we arrived, a priest was giving him the Last Rites. The priest invited all of us to kiss him and leave him a message. No one knows how long he will live, but he is in a room for the dying.
My brother is very weak. He can barely lift his head from the pillow and he cannot sit in bed without the help of three persons, one for each arm and a person who rearranges his pillow.
We stayed with him the entire afternoon and the little group returned to the hospital in the evening. I stayed home. I don’t want to know how much we paid in parking fees, but if members of his family did not help my brother, he would require the services of at least one professional twenty-four hours a day. A nurse came in to give him morphine and she obviously kept an eye on us, but he wasn’t alone.
Good News
I have good news. Quebec doctors were becoming an aristocracy:
However, here is what doctors themselves did in late February 2018.
We, Quebec doctors, are asking that the salary increases granted to physicians be cancelled and that the resources of the system be better distributed for the good of the healthcare workers and to provide health services worthy to the people of Quebec, the letter posted on 26 February states
