You couldn’t find a more appropriate idiom than the one about rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic to describe François Legault’s imminent cabinet shuffle.

His Coalition Avenir Québec government, mired in the SAAQclic scandal, is sinking so quickly that it’s hard to fathom how changing chairs around the cabinet table will in any way restore confidence or change the fortunes of his governing party.

Legault promised the fall shuffle in June, perhaps hoping it would provide — throughout the summer — a diversionary glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. However, continual bad polls, a devastating loss in the Arthabaska byelection, and the resumption last week of the SAAQclic commission hearings investigating the problem-plagued digitalization of the auto insurance board — with costs soaring $500 million over budget — have all but extinguished any glimmer.

In Legault’s current cabinet, heavyweights include: Geneviève Guilbault (Transport); Christian Dubé (Health); Bernard Drainville (Education); Eric Girard (Finance); Sonia LeBel........

© Montreal Gazette