It seems plain that the current debacle over bonuses paid to imaging technicians in hospitals throughout the Outaouais is politically-motivated.

If true, this would mean that the government of Quebec – elected by a democratic process in which we participated and which we support with our taxes and whose laws we obey – is intentionally discriminating against us, the residents of Pontiac who rely on healthcare services provided by the hospital in Shawville and the CLSC in Mansfield.

We are not alone. People who rely on the hospitals in Wakefield and Maniwaki find themselves in the same boat. By paying smaller bonuses to the people who work in these hospitals than to those in other nearby hospitals, decision-makers in the provincial government have decided that some hospitals, and the populations they serve, are less important than others.

The government would like us to believe that the bonuses were offered as an incentive for the techs to stay in their current jobs. It turns out that because the bonuses offered here are lower than those offered elsewhere, they actually serve as an incentive to leave. And, as predicted, the technicians in question plan to do just that.

It is extremely difficult not to ascribe a political purpose to this move which discriminates against hospitals in areas populated by bilingual and unilingually anglophone people, who are not typically ardent Quebec nationalists, nor particularly strong supporters of CAQ.

How are we not to think that this move is just this government’s latest expression of a larger agenda to let us know we are not welcome in Quebec, that we had better either assimilate or life will become so inconvenient, unprofitable and even hazardous to our health that we will voluntarily leave?

As if Bills 96 on language and 21 on secularism do not provide enough evidence of this agenda, Bill 101 has now been resurrected to verify who among us Quebec residents is eligible for health care. It turns out that ‘historic anglophones’ qualify as long as we can prove it, which requires a process of certification.

Maybe one day we will be required to carry identity cards that indicate our language, ethnicity and religion. History has shown that, in a society where equal rights are not automatically extended to all citizens, this can be a very helpful tool in helping the authorities separate the wheat from the chaff.

Meanwhile, there have been two developments.

One is a compromise move in which the technicians’ union has accepted the government’s offer for its members to be granted mobility privileges that would enable them to transfer anywhere in the province to fill staffing shortages in hospitals, for which they would get a $100-per-day bonus. It’s a band-aid solution that, at best, has the potential to provide temporary relief to the dire situation in our hospital. But it does nothing to provide an incentive for people to stay here for the long term, a precondition to putting healthcare in the Pontiac on a stable, sustainable footing.

The other is a local effort that has sprung up to raise enough money to close the bonus gap. It is a well-intentioned attempt to stem the tide of departures by crucial hospital staff by topping up the government incentive to the level offered elsewhere. It doesn’t intend to offer a long-term solution, nor could it. And its purpose is not to wag an accusing finger in the face of a misguided government, but simply to put a finger in the dam, to staunch the wound, so to speak.