Christiane Germain to step down as Chair of Santé Québec's Board of Directors

Tashi Farmilo

Christiane Germain, the hotel executive recruited to help launch Santé Québec and its board chair since 2024, will step down from the provincial health agency on October 30, the organization announced on July 7. Germain reached the decision after careful reflection because she believes the institution she helped build now rests on a solid enough foundation for her to pass on the role.

Santé Québec said the transition would begin in the coming weeks and that Germain would oversee an orderly handover before her departure, which comes about two and a half years after she took on the position.

The choice of a hotelier to help stand up for a health agency was deliberate. Germain is a co-founder and co-president of Groupe Germain, the family company behind Le Germain hotel chain that she has co-led for more than 35 years and that has ranked among Canada's best-managed companies for over two decades. Widely known to the public through the television program Dans l'œil du dragon, she was appointed to lead the agency's first board in May 2024 by then health minister Christian Dubé, who cast her as one of several private-sector recruits brought in to import a culture of customer service, staff engagement and results into a strained public network.

"When I accepted this mandate, I did so with enthusiasm because I deeply believed in the importance of building this new institution," Germain said in a statement, adding that she approached the work with the entrepreneurial spirit that defines her.

She said the job is now far enough along for her to leave. "I am convinced that today, Santé Québec has solid foundations and an exceptional team capable of continuing the work already begun," she said, describing the creation of the agency as "an exceptional privilege that few people get the chance to have in their careers."

Germain thanked board members for their commitment and collaboration and pointed to results she attributed to the agency's efforts, including shorter surgical wait times, improved access to mental health care, greater access to youth protection services and an increase in home care.

Santé Québec was created under Bill 15, a sweeping health reform adopted under closure in December 2023. Its purpose is to take over the day-to-day management and coordination of the entire public health and social services network, which employs more than 300,000 people across hundreds of facilities, separating operations from the health ministry and driving a culture change intended to make the system more efficient and more accessible to patients.

Health Minister Sonia Bélanger thanked Germain in a post on X for the work she accomplished, writing that the early days of a new institution are often the most demanding and that Germain chose to take part in that pivotal moment and help lay the foundations of the new state agency.

Geneviève Biron, Santé Québec's president and chief executive, credited Germain with a decisive role in the agency's governance from its earliest days and closed by looking ahead. "Santé Québec's teams remain fully mobilized and will continue, together with the board, the work undertaken to durably transform the health and social services network for the benefit of Quebec's population," she said.