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The question was bound to come up, and there are no simple answers yet.

With Quebec registering its biggest daily increase in COVID-19 mortalities Thursday and officials scrambling to rescue the elderly by parachuting more workers into seniors’ residences, questions about who is to blame for the disaster in those facilities and what Quebec’s level of preparation was are starting to emerge.

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“The priority now is not to find the guilty parties,” Premier François Legault said Thursday at the latest of his increasingly gloomy daily briefings. “Now we have to take care of our seniors who are the most vulnerable. We can do the overview later and, yes, ask the questions.

“We will do the accounting and look at reform proposals after the crisis is settled.”

There will be plenty to talk about now that the province holds two not-so-glorious records in Canada: the most confirmed cases — over 15,000, with 997 new cases recorded Thursday — and the highest number of deaths. With 143 new confirmed mortalities Thursday, the total is now 630.