There are two kinds of electoral promises: those that we make without worrying about keeping them or not, because we will not have to pay the price of a denial, and those that we feel obliged to respect. .
François Legault did not have the slightest hesitation in abandoning the reform of the voting system, believing that the population would not hold it against him, but it would not occur to him to give up the promised tax cut, although that would clearly be the right thing to do.
In an open letter published last week, 53 economists and financial analysts deem “inappropriate, unfair and counterproductive” the 1% reduction in the tax rate of the first two levels of the tax table, to which the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) got involved during the election campaign last fall.
If the rise in the cost of living may seem to justify it, they consider it contraindicated to reduce state revenues by 2 billion per year, when this money should be invested in public services, in particular health and social services. ‘education.
As easy as it is to lower taxes, it is equally difficult to raise them. In politics as elsewhere, frivolity is also more common than responsibility. This image of the taxpayer-the-most-taxed-in-North-America should also be qualified. What Quebecers pay for electricity, daycare or even university education is notoriously less than in Ontario.
The resounding failure that the provinces suffered in the negotiations on the Canada Health Transfer (CHT) can only reinforce the need not to weaken the Quebec government’s ability to intervene.
Mr. Legault certainly did not expect to obtain the 6 billion claimed by Quebec. Half of this sum would no doubt have satisfied him, but the small billion to which he will be entitled leaves a shortfall which corresponds precisely to the promised tax reduction.
The Prime Minister acknowledges that the inability to get the Trudeau government to be more generous in the federal contribution to funding health services will cause headaches for his Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, who is currently working on the current budget. ‘he will present in the spring.
It is clear that Mr. Girard does not have the option of giving up the promised tax reduction. The CAQ had not yet presented its candidate for the by-election in Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne when Mr. Legault already appeared on the signs with the slogan “Lower taxes from 2023”.
Even if the chances of a CAQ victory are practically nil in the constituency left vacant by the departure of Dominique Anglade, the Prime Minister can no longer back down. Regardless of the economic situation over the next year, Mr. Girard will therefore have to manage without these 2 billion.
In Quebec, however, we took good note of the my culpa what former Liberal finance minister Carlos Leitão did in a recent interview with Radio-Canada. With hindsight, he regrets the rigor of the budget cuts imposed by the Couillard government, particularly in education. “If it had to be done again, in education, I think we would have gone more slowly,” he said.
In its budget for 2015-2016, the budgetary envelope allocated to it had increased by only 0.2%, which had imposed a brake on hiring, the effects of which are still being felt.
Mr. Legault learned the lesson well. Whether in education or health care, regardless of the obstacles, he has promised himself never to return to the austerity that was fatal to the Liberal Party and from which he himself was the first to profit.
It would be an exaggeration to associate him with the “effective left”, as he himself has already done, but it must be recognized that he is not the gravedigger of the welfare state that many saw in him when the CAQ was in opposition.
Whatever Mr. Leitão may say, it is difficult not to attribute the Couillard government’s eagerness to restore a balanced budget to an ideological stubbornness that was associated above all with his Treasury Board colleague, Martin Coiteux. So far, there is no reason to address this criticism to the Legault government.
In his update last December, Eric Girard still predicted a return to balance in 2027-2028. If this were to impose too great sacrifices on the health sector, we would prefer to postpone the deadline. No one will complain about it.