When Horacio Arruda spoke at the beginning of the pandemic, accompanied by Prime Minister François Legault and the downtrodden Minister of Health, Danielle McCann, Quebecers quickly noticed the colorful figure.

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But with the province mired in the ravages of COVID-19, Quebec’s director of public health appears to have taken up less space in the press, and even in strategies.

That’s what the former leader of the New Democratic Party of Canada, Thomas Mulcair, thinks.

“I have sympathy and sympathy for him. He was asked to justify the unjustifiable,” he released on “La Jote,” Tuesday, on LCN radio waves.

Muclair is referring to Arruda’s comments for the holiday season when he said the likelihood of an explosion in Omicron-related hospitals was “relatively low” and the system would be able to support them – an analysis that probably marked the end of a honeymoon with the same audience that encouraged him nearly two years ago.

On the one hand, he said he made decisions based on science, but had already received the order from his prime minister, who wanted parties for 25 people at Christmas.

“(Public Health) knew very well what was going on with Omicron. There he said ‘we’re going to number 20’ and we asked him if he had any knowledge of it. He said ‘that’s it’ and that was as far as he could go (in justify it).

“A bang! It collapsed and we had to change everything over Christmas. That’s the problem.”

In addition, political analyst Antonin Yakarini said that he had felt winded by Arruda’s departure over the past hours: “I think Mr. Arruda was tired and it looked like I noticed. We could hear in Parliament House that he was about to finish.

“It didn’t come out of nowhere either. All records said it was about to expire.”