The duty invites you once again to the back roads of university life. A proposal that is both scholarly and intimate, to be picked up all summer long like a postcard. Today, we are interested in redistribution and the role of the State.
When the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) formed government in 2018, many expected a frontal attack on the welfare state. Its main candidates had made clear their distaste for the legacy of the Quiet Revolution and for the Quebec model of social policies.
However, during its first mandate, the CAQ adopted a much more centrist social and fiscal policy than expected. Indeed, in an article co-written with Daniel Béland, Shannon Dinan and Patrik Marier and published in the Canadian Journal of Political Scienceand in 2023, we demonstrate that the CAQ rejected the austerity policies associated with the previous government and favored the expansion of social policy rather than tax cuts or a rapid return to a balanced budget.
The party financed the second-term tax cuts by reducing payments to the Generations Fund, thus increasing the public debt, rather than by slashing public spending. This budgetary policy is clearly different from the decisions of a typical Conservative government in a Canadian province.
How can we explain this centrist governance?
While the pandemic has certainly fostered the expansion of social policies, the Legault government’s first two budgets have revealed its preference for expanding social policy over tax cuts. In our article, we posit that the CAQ’s shift to the centre can be explained by the Quebec model itself. It is characterized by family and social policies that lead to a reduction in poverty and inequality that is unparalleled in North America. Quebec’s generous social policies change citizens’ expectations and create social groups that defend current policies. Since the CAQ is a pragmatic party, it would have followed voters’ preferences and favoured an expansion of the generosity of social policies rather than imposing an ideological agenda.
But are Quebecers really attached to their social model? The idea that Quebecers are more united than other Canadians is often conveyed in the media and by Premier Legault himself. At Easter, he mentioned that “Catholicism has also engendered a culture of solidarity among us that sets us apart on a continental scale.” However, this assertion had not been proven.
Axel Déry, Shannon Dinan and I analyzed some twenty surveys over the last 50 years to see if Quebecers support government intervention and the redistribution of income from the rich to the poor more than other Canadians. These concepts, related to the notion of solidarity, are at the heart of studies on public opinion regarding the welfare state.
Our analysis, published in 2024 in the journal Policy analysisreveals significantly higher support for redistribution and state intervention among Quebec respondents than among those in other provinces. However, support for redistribution as strong as in Quebec is observed in some Atlantic provinces.
This Quebec specificity is explained by a lower polarization between the rich and the poor and between voters of different parties on redistributive issues.
Indeed, Quebecers at the top of the income scale are less opposed to redistribution than the wealthy living in other provinces. Moreover, while voters for conservative parties in other provinces are very opposed to redistribution, voters for the four parties represented in the National Assembly share fairly similar preferences on this issue. The absence of a hard right capable of forming government and mobilizing Quebecers against their welfare state is an important factor in explaining the maintenance of the Quebec model of social policies.
The association between Quebec nationalism and social protection represents another differentiating factor. Indeed, Quebecers who identify more with Quebec (rather than with Canada) tend to support redistribution. By promoting more generous social policies than those of other provinces, Parti Québécois governments have sought to reinforce the idea of a distinct society and to cement citizens’ sense of identification with the Quebec state.
The use of social protection to develop a sense of national belonging has subsequently influenced other political parties in Quebec. Thus, some more right-wing nationalists support redistribution and intervention by the (Quebec) state. This situation, which increases average support for redistribution, does not exist in other provinces, since Canadians who identify with their province are generally inclined to vote for conservative parties and oppose redistribution.
As for religion, Mr. Legault’s hypothesis is not validated: Quebecers are in fact less religious than other Canadians and people who regularly attend a religious institution are not necessarily more united.
This Quebec exceptionalism has political consequences. It partly explains why the Conservative Party of Canada has not managed to make a breakthrough in the province (although Quebecers’ significantly higher support for the environmental cause certainly plays a role). In addition, it is politically difficult for a Quebec government to significantly reduce state intervention. Thus, the budgetary austerity that the CAQ government is threatening to impose in the coming years risks harming it during the next election campaign.