The CAQ “forgot that it was public funds”: $1 million locker rooms for civil servants

The Quebec Immigration Ministry spent more than a million to furnish its locker rooms while the government is cutting spending elsewhere on francization and furnishing.

In fact, 636 lockers, 89 benches, 14 open changing rooms and 27 tables with adjustable height were recently acquired by the Ministry of Immigration, Francisation and Integration (MIFI).

The total bill amounts to $1,033,292.44, according to the explanatory notebook for 2024-2025 appropriations.

“This expense caught my attention, I found it really high compared to others,” says Liberal immigration spokesperson André Morin, who questioned these purchases during the study. credits last April.

All the furniture was used to furnish the Montreal head office and the Quebec office, where around 1,600 people work on a rotating basis.

The laminate lockers thus replaced the old metal changing rooms which were mostly in poor condition and in insufficient quantity, according to a ministry spokesperson.

It was the Quebec company Artopex which won the call for tenders, having been the only company to bid.

Francization cuts

But while Immigration and Francization officials are entitled to brand new locker rooms, Francization courses must be canceled in several school service centers due to lack of budget.

The Legault government also recently abolished allowances for part-time French learning.

For André Morin, himself a former senior civil servant, the CAQ “spent while forgetting that it was public funds. Afterwards, they end up with a huge deficit and they have to cut.”

In education, some schools also learned that they would no longer have the right to purchase “furniture, equipment and tools” for this school year.

This category includes objects such as desks, lockers or laboratory equipment.

If this same rule had applied to the Department of Immigration, it would never have been able to procure high-end chairs like it did last year.

Eight “very small armchairs for short people” were purchased for $5,240, while 10 work stools for open areas cost taxpayers $7,230.

Shared offices

For its part, MIFI asserts that these chairs met the desired criteria and that the purchase of the locker rooms is justified since its employees no longer had a place to store their belongings since the end of work at assigned offices.

The ministry also emphasizes that regrouping staff at the head office will save approximately $3.4 million in rent annually.

“It is not because we make an economy of scale with rents that we can make any other expense afterwards,” judges MP André Morin.