When the last budget arrives before an election, no matter what it contains, the opposition rips its shirt off and denounces an indecent electoralism that the population will not be fooled.
Tradition has been scrupulously respected. “Mr. Legault is raining checks hoping to go to the cash register on October 3,” launched Manon Massé. The leader of the PQ, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, even found that the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, had pushed the limits of electoralism to an unprecedented level.
One may find that a compensation of 500 dollars is insufficient to compensate for the increase in the cost of living and especially that it should have been more targeted. It is difficult to describe a measure that affects 6.4 million Quebecers as clientelist, but we must not be naive: the more happy taxpayers there are, the more happy voters there will be who will be tempted to “vote good edge”.
A budget qualified as electoralism is not necessarily a bad budget for all that. Mr. Girard’s will not eradicate poverty, solve the housing crisis or the shortage of child care spaces, let alone fight climate change. However, there are times when ad hoc help is also needed.
We cannot accuse the government of sacrificing the essential missions of the State, when spending on health, education and higher education will increase by 6.3%, 5.4% and 13.1 % respectively, well beyond the increase in “system costs”.
The experience of the last decades warrants a certain caution, not to say a certain skepticism, before believing that the health network will necessarily become “more efficient and more accessible”, as stated by the President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel. If the announced “refoundation” is a failure, it will not be for lack of means.
While the coming to power of the CAQ had many feared a formal disengagement, the budgets presented by this former Conservative candidate, Mr. Girard, are more in line, year after year, with a social democratic perspective. in good faith.
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The Legault government had been the first in more than thirty years to inherit such an advantageous economic and financial situation, which the Couillard government made the mistake of not trying to take advantage of on the eve of the 2018 election.
However, he was able to resist the temptation to deprive the State of its ability to intervene by reducing the tax burden excessively or prematurely, as some were calling for. Moreover, there will be no further relief before the return to a balanced budget, warned the Minister of Finance.
It is true that the post-pandemic rebound of the Quebec economy, faster than in the rest of the country, is occurring at a particularly favorable time for the government. Under the circumstances, a structural deficit of less than 3 billion, ie a fall of more than half in one year, is almost unexpected and is unlikely to make voters fear a return to austerity.
This relative prosperity, however, is not likely to strengthen its argument for demanding an increase of $6 billion per year in the Canada Health Transfer (CHT). If Quebec has the means to reinvest in its health care system, why would the federal government agree to increase its participation?
Whether the government is Liberal, PQ or CAQ, it has long been an imposed figure for the Minister of Finance to devote a few paragraphs of his budget to Quebec’s claims, knowing that he must not take them into account in the development of its financial framework. Paul St-Pierre Plamondon sees in this an admission of failure; it is simply the reality of federalism.