(Quebec) The Legault government tabled its “Bill 1”, which limits the inflation of government tariffs to 3% by the end of the mandate, a measure of 1.1 billion.
“Essentially, we want to limit the increase in rates for citizens to 3% for the entire period of the current government, from 1er January 2023 to December 31, 2026. […] Without this bill, the indexation would have been more than 6%,” explained Finance Minister Eric Girard at a press briefing following the tabling of the legislative document on Thursday.
It was an election promise from the CAQ, and one of the measures of its “shield” against inflation, with a rebate of checks and an additional amount for seniors.
In Mr. Girard’s sights: hospital parking rates, the contribution to childcare services, tuition fees, access to SEPAQ parks or the rental of rooms in CHSLDs, for example, but not the rates for state corporations with a commercial vocation, such as the Société des alcools du Québec, for example.
no frost
Mr. Girard rejects out of hand Quebec solidaire’s request to simply freeze rates for the next year, a question of giving a boost to the wallets of Quebecers. He believes that this way of doing things risks causing a price shock later on.
The Minister rather believes that his strategy sufficiently protects the purchasing power of citizens “I think that we have enough history in Quebec to know that when we freeze the rates, after that, when we want to unfreeze them, it creates tensions, we have difficulties. However, good practice, sound management, is that in normal times, the rates are indexed according to the inflation of the previous year,” said the minister.
Mr. Girard must also introduce a second bill to limit the increase in Hydro-Quebec rates to 3%, a situation caused by a law adopted under the gag order by the CAQ government and which linked the Hydro-Quebec bill to inflation.