For the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government, the main problem of this week’s budgetary exercise will not be its record deficit of $11 billion. Rather, it is a credibility deficit that the entire government will have to bear for the remainder of its mandate.
Quebec has had all kinds of governments over the years: a government of doctors, it was said of the Couillard government. A government of business people who wanted “ running the State like a business,” was how Robert Bourassa’s second government was described. A government of professors and technocrats, that of René Lévesque had been called.
Today, Quebec has a government of accountants. Its main leaders, Legault, Girard, Fitzgibbon and Dubé, are accountants or economists well versed in figures and balance sheets.
So how can we explain that, during the November economic update, the government of accountants predicted a deficit of around 3 billion and that this jumped to 11 billion in a few weeks? It’s not so much a question of numbers as it is a question of credibility.
Even subtracting the contribution to the Generations Fund, even admitting that we could not predict the final cost of negotiations with the public sector, this excess is totally out of the norm. As a bonus, the government does not have to present a plan to return to a balanced budget before next year, thanks to a revision of the law, discreetly adopted at the end of the session before Christmas.
In fact, we even learned that the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, had not provided a cushion to take into account the result of the negotiations with state employees, which will cost $3 billion more than expected by the government. . But even if we had considered this particular situation, we would not have arrived at a deficit of 11 billion.
How can we return to balanced budgets now? Two words. One is absolutely taboo: “austerity”. The other is strongly suggested: “optimization”. Except that, in both cases, it can only hurt.
We cannot talk about austerity because the word has been on the index since the Couillard government. But when there is so much money missing to complete the budget, there are not a thousand ways to get out of it: inevitably, there will be cuts in spending. Whether the government says it or not.
The government wanted us to remember from its budget that it invested in health and education, but even if we want to believe it, we can legitimately wonder if the resources will be there for citizens to see a concrete difference in these services. essential.
Especially since the solution that the government says it favors, namely optimization, has rarely had the expected results. Just one example: the government wants to clean up tax credits.
But we just have to see the reactions to the budget. Already, the video game industry is stepping up to say that tax credits are absolutely essential to its survival. And that’s just a small example of what’s to come.
It is a situation which is all the more serious, on the political level, as time passes quickly. Next fall, we will be halfway through the Legault government’s term. Which means that the plan to return to balanced budgets cannot be anything other than a road map for inevitable budgetary cuts in the pre-election period.
Meanwhile, government investment needs will not diminish. Particularly in transport, for municipalities, without forgetting Hydro-Québec, which is already announcing massive investments to ensure the decarbonization of the economy.
Which makes it difficult to describe the situation in which the Legault government finds itself without thinking of the fable of the cicada and the ant.
The CAQ government inherited power after years of austerity, but the Liberals still left it with public finances in order and surpluses.
To ensure its re-election, the Legault government spent a lot, and not only to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. From anti-inflation checks to electoral tax cuts, we quickly emptied the fund.
Today, we can only note that a good number of projects, often with a nationalist flavor, of this government – such as the Blue Spaces, the Blue Basket, the Seniors’ Homes – will have been failures and are now abandoned. or in the process of being so.
The same goes for the third link, clumsily resurrected by the Prime Minister the day after his defeat in Jean-Talon. A statement that we couldn’t help but think of when Mr. Legault spoke this week of new tax cuts for his possible third term.
And to end the week, Mr. Legault went to ask for full immigration powers, knowing very well that Justin Trudeau could only say no. That too is not very good for credibility.
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