It is already the blessed hour of the end-of-year balance sheets. Allow me to offer you mine, in my own way, from what has been our third year already of a global pandemic.

A year ago, to the day, François Legault decreed a new curfew. Admit you forgot. Normal. Because in terms of the Covid pandemic, 2022 was above all the year of great denial.

Here as elsewhere, from the brutal confinement of 2020 to the sudden lifting of health measures this spring, most people and governments, worn to the bone it must be said, preferred to believe that the pandemic was over.

My list for 2022

Quebec gets snapped. On a completely different note, Alberta and Saskatchewan declared their sovereignty, but within a strong and united Canada. Yvon Deschamps refrained from demanding copyright. Finally, Quebecers will never lose "their" Rockies...

Wokes in my soup. Despite the rise in several countries of a xenophobic extreme right, a morbid fear of wokes has taken hold of Western elites. The wokes, however, did not invade the Capitol or occupy Ottawa with metal behemoths, neo-Nazi flags, Fuck Trudeau posters and delirious conspiratorial slogans.

Shooting Stars. Former Quebec premier Jean Charest lost the federal Conservative leadership race.

Even with 13% of the vote, but without the least elected, the leader of the Conservative Party of Quebec, Éric Duhaime, is already evaporating visibly.

Having delivered the PLQ its worst defeat since its founding in 1867, its leader Dominique Anglade had to resign herself to resign.

The rising stars. Thanks to his stoic calm and his pugnacious defense of the freedom of conscience of elected officials in the face of the monarchy, the leader of the Parti Québécois, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, rescued his party from the funeral home.

Despite his disappointing campaign, the parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, nevertheless has a promising future ahead of him.

By proudly bringing their baby Gabriel to the National Assembly, the two spouses and Liberal MPs Marwah Rizqy and Gregory Kelley, embodied the urgency of a better work-family balance for all.

The most amazing look. Although he was sailing towards a massive victory, throughout the campaign, François Legault often pouted. On election night, thanks to his 90 out of 125 seats, his smile was back.

The great missing. The reform of the voting system. The Oath to the King. Justin Trudeau resignation rumors. The popularity of Pierre Poilievre. Worthy of a Bye bye, the ads on “the magic of the CAQ”.

The real heroes

Since the bloody invasion of their country by the Russian army of Vladimir Putin, the boundless bravery of the Ukrainian people and their president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has dazzled us.

At the risk of their lives, Iranian women are demanding that the mullahs give them back all their lost freedoms – first of all that of whether or not to wear the veil.

The courageous support of many young Iranian men, some of whom have been executed, also commands admiration.

Banned from studying by the Taliban and forced to cover themselves in thick cloth cages, more and more Afghan women are just as bravely demanding that they stop being treated like sub-humans.

On this, in our more cozy countries, but where there is no lack of distress, I wish us light at the end of this too long tunnel.

And to take advantage of it, a public health system repaired before the end of our days. See you again in 2023...