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The Legault government has set itself the objective of having reduced the gap between Quebec and Ontario in terms of living standards to 10% in 2026 and of having completely eliminated it by 2036.
Things seem to be well underway. From more than 25% at the turn of the 1990s, the gap in terms of real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita gradually fell by almost half, thanks in particular to a sharp increase in the employment rate of workers. Quebecois. The rest of the journey, however, promises to be much more difficult, warned the Chair in Taxation and Public Finance at the University of Sherbrooke in a recent study.
If we rely on current major trends in long-term economic and demographic growth, Quebec will still show an unfavorable gap in 2036 equivalent to what it should be this year, i.e. 12.7%. As the Quebec economy generally lags behind in terms of productivity gains, it could accelerate its progress in this area by 20% (scenario 2) and hope to reduce the difference compared to Ontario to just below the bar. 10%. And if we also managed to use the maximum number of available workers to reach the employment rates of the five best-performing countries in this area (scenario 3), we could further reduce the delay a little, to 9.3%.
The targets of the Quebec government thus appear “possibly too ambitious”, concludes the Chair’s study, which does not fail to note in passing that if Quebec’s per capita wealth gap has shrunk compared to Ontario in more than 30 years, it has notably widened in comparison with the average of advanced countries (going from 19.6% to 23.1%) and with the United States (from 40.1% to 52.3% ) at purchasing power parity.
Perhaps, to give a solid boost, it would be necessary to do as in the era of the fight against deficits and go beyond the simple statement of policy by adopting a “law on collective enrichment” accompanied by “explicit objectives and targets, an action plan and accountability mechanisms,” says the Chair.
Perhaps we should also broaden the definition of the standard of living that we seek to improve. The collective enrichment target could, for example, come with indicators relating in particular to education, poverty reduction and environmental protection.