Discipline, Legault’s watchword

This is rarely seen, if not unheard of, since he came to power in 2018.

François Legault will have been absent from the public scene for a month. His last appearance was on December 20, to announce a negotiation agreement with the Inuit of Nunavik.

It has been radio silence since, with a few exceptions: messages on X and on Facebook to comment on his latest readings or to congratulate “Casseau” for his position as head coach of the Islanders. And a letter sent to Justin Trudeau asking him to slow down the arrival of asylum seekers.

Of course, there was the holiday season, then a trip to Mexico in early January. But François Legault had not taken such a long break in the past.

The Prime Minister will end his eclipse this Wednesday at the CAQ caucus meeting in Sherbrooke to prepare for the resumption of work in the National Assembly on January 30. He will send a message to his troops in front of the cameras at the opening of the meeting, but unless there is a last minute change of heart, he will not address the media. He will make a press briefing on Thursday only.

It will take some getting used to, it seems. The Prime Minister will now be less present in the media, those around him warn. It is judged that he has been overexposed in the last year. It will be up to ministers to be more at the front… but with circumspection, we point out.

This is the slogan sent to the CAQ troops: “discipline”.

Discipline both in public reactions and in decisions, we have been saying since the beginning of the year in the Legault cabinet. We want to avoid causing controversies like last year.

It has already been reported: François Legault will not make a ministerial reshuffle. At least, not right away, people around him insist. It is possible that there will be one later, after the parliamentary session, therefore mid-term. The signal is clear to ministers: you are under surveillance.

The slogan of discipline also applies to deputies, it is said. The procrastination over the third Quebec-Lévis link and the subsidy to the Kings pushed CAQ elected officials to publicly express their disagreement. This is rare at the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ), and we should not make a habit of it, we suggest.

Refocusing

The government feels the need to “refocus” the message after theannus horribilis of 2023. We must avoid spreading ourselves too thin and instead focus on the priority of improving health and education services, we summarize.

It is not the first government to want to avoid dispersion. This is also exactly the same objective that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, meeting in caucus this week too, have set for themselves. The two governments have difficult polls in common.

The main source of voter dissatisfaction with the Legault government is the lack of improvement in education and health services, Léger noted recently. The government must manage to move the needle once and for all. The Dubé and Drainville reforms have now been adopted and will be implemented, an operation which will be perilous. Negotiations with the unions would have made it possible, it seems, to obtain a certain “flexibility” in the collective agreements – the government did not boast of it to avoid undermining the union members called to vote.

After having insisted so much on the need to obtain all these means and these powers, François Legault has an obligation to achieve results.

It will also take a lot of discipline to pass two important bills expected this session.

The reform in the construction industry of the Minister of Labor, Jean Boulet, is already raising discontent among the unions. As for the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, he must already defend himself from denationalizing Hydro-Québec with his upcoming bill to review the supervision of energy development. His message has been rather confused so far, and here again, there is an outcry from the unions.

Other legislative texts are on the government’s agenda: to create a transport agency, to improve safety in sport by giving more teeth to the Complaints Officer, to improve the coordination of civil security during disasters, to force Netflix, Spotify and other Amazon Prime to give more space to Quebec content.

Budgetary…discipline

There is another form of discipline that is being prepared in government: budgetary discipline.

It almost went unnoticed, but the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, revised his forecasts downward in mid-December. Again. Barely a month and a half after its economic update, the government’s financial framework has actually deteriorated by $635 million due to a significant drop in anticipated revenues. Eric Girard compensated for a good part of this revision by using his entire contingency reserve of 500 million.

Result: Quebec no longer has a cushion for unforeseen events, and the expected deficit increases to 4.1 billion – after payment to the Generations Fund, which is used to reduce the weight of the debt.

Then, at the end of December, it became official: Quebec was in a technical recession – two consecutive quarters of decline in gross domestic product. Eric Girard prefers to speak of stagnation, to the extent that the decline is limited to 0.8% during the last quarter.

No matter how you describe it, the economic picture is even darker than when the government delivered on its tax cut promise last March…

Another change to the financial framework has just occurred: the higher-than-expected salary increases, of 17.4% in five years, that the government has granted to state employees. The salaries of 600,000 workers will jump by 8.8% this year – taking into account the 6% increase granted for 2023 and the 2.8% increase applicable to 1^er april.

Executives are in the process of obtaining the same increases… just like deputies, under the law adopted by the Legault government last year and having increased the salaries of elected officials by 30%. The CAQ signaled in November that they wanted to renounce indexation for 2023, but a change to the law would be necessary.

Wage increases will increase pressure on the spending column. Each percentage point increase costs $600 million per year.

Before the drop in its anticipated revenues and the conclusion of agreements in principle with the unions, Quebec planned to limit the growth of all departmental spending to 1.6% next year, compared to 2.3% this year. It seems obvious: the time for difficult choices is approaching. We will soon be talking about budgetary rigor in Quebec… refusing the label of austerity.

In his online consultation to prepare his next budget, Eric Girard asks the question: should we postpone or not the return to a balanced budget currently planned for 2027-2028? To be continued.