October is the month of pumpkins, costumes, colourful fall leaves and, of course, provincial elections, only the second to be held on a fixed date in Québec. Unsurprisingly, François Legault was able to return his government to power with a majority. He said that education and the economy would be the top priorities of his second term. Québec’s life sciences and health technologies sector should therefore be relatively predictable.
The Plan Santé (Québec’s new health reform) to be deployed by Minister Dubé will present some opportunities for our sector, particularly in terms of research and a stronger INESSS, but also with the adoption of the new version of Bill 19 on health data.
As for training, I note in particular the commitment to a major reform to vocational training, with the aim of awarding 30,000 more diplomas in strategic sectors, with a focus on remote learning and new short paid programs in key sectors. Our sector should benefit from this initiative. Let’s wait for the appointment of the full cabinet even if the key ministers have already been identified.
In June 2022, Montréal InVivo amended its by-laws to make room in its governance for two seats for citizen/patient representatives. We needed to be consistent with our own strategic priorities, one of which is to further involve patients and citizens in the innovation process.
We have therefore created the Community Member category to serve on the organization’s Board of Directors. To be eligible, these members must come from non-profit associations or organizations whose mission is related to the representation of the needs of patients/citizens concerned with health care administration and who demonstrate an interest in the life sciences and health technologies sector. The selection process is already underway and if you have any suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
I wanted to share a few words on EFFERVESCENCE to conclude. The call for proposals for the event’s 2023 programming was very successful. We received significantly more proposals for sessions than there were time slots available in the programming schedule. Not a bad problem to have!
We are currently in the process of analyzing all of this and are busy finding solutions to satisfy as many people as possible and will soon be able to announce the 2023 program. Stay tuned.