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MONTREAL — The leader of the Coalition Avenir Québec faced accusations of inconsistency on Monday after announcing her party would make it easier for doctors to work in both the public and private sectors if it forms a new government after the Oct. 5 provincial election.
As part of her party’s health plan, Christine Fréchette said she would start discussions with doctors on a “mixed practice” model that would allow them to work in both streams without having to withdraw from the province’s public health insurance system, the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec.
She said doctors would still have to “maintain an adequate presence” in the public system.
The promise is a reversal for her party, which passed a law in 2025 forcing all new doctors to practice in the province’s public system for five years.
She said Monday that the best performing health systems in the world “enable a presence in both the public and private sectors,” while refusing to say that her party’s 2025 law was a mistake.
Liberal Leader Charles Milliard said Fréchette’s words are an example of her throwing her former colleagues under the bus as she tries to distance herself from her party’s past decisions.
Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon accused Fréchette of “improvisation,” while Québec solidaire spokesperson Ruba Ghazal said Fréchette is on the wrong path, and the province should focus on bringing doctors back to the public system.
Day five of the campaign also featured promises on natural resources, housing, education and government bureaucracy.
The Parti Québécois announced a plan to reduce the cost of public sector payroll by 2.5 per cent over three years. St-Pierre Plamondon said his plan relies on measures such as attrition, voluntary departures or work hours reductions rather than layoffs.
Under the Coalition Avenir Québec, “the size of the bureaucracy grows by 24 per cent while the population grows by 10 per cent,” he said, suggesting that his “cleanup” would save the province at least $1.6 billion per year.
The Conservative party outlined their proposal to exploit the province’s natural gas reserves, while Milliard said he would rely on prefabricated homes to fulfill a promise of building 100,000 housing units each year.
Québec solidaire, meanwhile, pledged to invest in the province’s public school system with a goal of cutting the dropout rate in half.
Fréchette’s health promises included a series of measures to reduce health care wait times, including allowing patients who have been waiting more than nine months for plastic or orthopedic surgery to be treated in the private system.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 31, 2026.
Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
