The Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) took advantage of the surpluses generated by Philippe Couillard’s draconian cuts to play Santa Claus by handing out cheques to all Quebecers and lowering taxes by $4 billion. With this electoral generosity behind him, the Minister of Finance now finds himself obliged to achieve a balanced budget in a less favourable economic context. However, in order not to repeat the mistakes of its predecessor, the Legault government has postponed the return to a balanced budget until 2027-2028, which will result in significant deficits for the fiscal years up to that date.
To reduce the extent of this shortfall, the CAQ government intends to demand efforts to make cuts to certain education programs, or to demand measures from health and early childhood establishments to wipe out their deficit.
Indeed, the Minister of Education is asking for the participation of school service centres to maintain their entire educational missions towards students in difficulty, while having fewer resources to do so. Thus, by not renewing the $300 million school catch-up plan, which has nevertheless proven its effectiveness and relevance, he is contributing to increasing the workload of teachers.
In addition, the decision to remove $400 million from the school maintenance budget will force school administrators to multiply their budgetary feats, as they were already dealing with a significant lack of staff in schools. Finally, Minister Bernard Drainville’s disengagement from Lab-École establishments and the slowdown in the implementation of four-year-old kindergartens confirm this government’s lack of long-term vision.
In the area of early childhood, we learned that more than half of early childhood centres are experiencing significant deficits and that they will have to be accountable to get out of their deficit situation. Added to this is the recent decision by the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, to impose budgetary restrictions on the college and university network, which must reduce their spending on the renovation and expansion of their buildings.
As for the health network, it is experiencing major budgetary problems. In fact, data compiled by Radio-Canada shows that most of the 34 establishments in the network have an overall deficit exceeding one billion dollars. According to the office of Health Minister Christian Dubé, they have a legal responsibility to return to a balanced budget.
It goes without saying that there is a risk that this request will result in significant reductions in services, as is currently the case at the Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de Laval, where absent night shift staff will not be replaced. As a result, nursing assistants will have to care for 58 patients spread over two floors instead of 29 patients on a single floor. Such aberrations are to be expected in all institutions, which are already suffering from a significant shortage of nursing staff.
With the postponement of achieving a zero deficit until 2027-2028, the next Minister of Finance will inevitably have to make painful cuts to education and health after the elections scheduled for 2026. Until then, the Legault government will increasingly resort to measures that will bring austerity in through the back door, hoping that this will go unnoticed by the population. We know that these cuts will undoubtedly affect the quality of public services in the crucial areas of education and health.