By the end of the election campaign, the editorial team of the To have to will offer an analysis of the main commitments of political parties on themes that concern all Quebecers. Today: financial executives.
n August, the Auditor General of Quebec, Guylaine Leclerc, gave her imprimatur to the pre-election report presented to her by the Department of Finance, as is now the norm. The AG passes judgment on the plausibility of the projections established by the department and on the soundness of the assumptions used to design this five-year financial framework. In this case, she concluded that the portrait was plausible, while underlining the uncertainty that hangs over the economic context.
It is a valuable tool for political parties, which can each develop — from the same bases — the financial framework of their electoral platform over a period of four or five years.
Unveiled two weeks before the start of the elections, the pre-election report contained excellent news for parties that want to increase their electoral commitments. In just a few months, the deficit forecast for the current year had melted, dropping from $6.45 billion to $729 million after payments to the Generations Fund. The time is not for austerity or sobriety, but for prodigality, the protagonists have understood.
However, a good part of the improvement in public finances is due to inflation, which has inflated the State’s own-source revenue while cutting into the purchasing power of the population. It goes without saying that we are trying to return a share of this windfall to the citizens. The context lends itself to one-off measures, such as the single tax credit of the last Girard budget or the check that François Legault promised for December. But both the Quebec Liberal Party and the Coalition avenir Quebec have chosen to offer a tax cut, which puts a permanent strain on government revenues.
Formerly associated with austerity, the PLQ did not give it a dead hand. Dominique Anglade has presented commitments totaling $41 billion over five years, rivaling the largesse of Quebec solidaire, which at least can claim to be motivated by socialist designs. Nearly $29 billion of the Liberal measures are recurring in nature, including a tax cut and an allowance for seniors. A bit like QS, Dominique Anglade’s PLQ is raising taxes on the “super-rich” and will tax the digital giants. The fight against tax havens is also on its agenda. Unfortunately for the Liberals, an unfortunate $16 billion error has confused their financial framework. When it’s bad, it’s bad.
The CAQ has promised to lower taxes, a measure financed in part by a reduction in payments to the Generations Fund, but almost half as much as the PLQ. Its allowance for seniors is also a little less generous. But apart from more optimistic forecasts than those of the pre-election report regarding economic growth, the CAQ does not count on a multiplication of new sources of income such as the PLQ or QS. The return to financial balance is scheduled for 2027-2028, before the deadline envisaged by the Liberals.
A united government would incur new expenditures amounting to more than $37 billion over four years, a sum slightly reduced by savings, thanks in particular to the state corporation Pharma-Québec. Greedy, QS would seek no less than 25 billion in new income during his mandate. The “ultra-rich”, but the simple rich too, can we understand, will shell out. Just like large companies, mining, GAFAM and financial institutions. Due to massive investments in infrastructures, it is the only party which foresees that the weight of the public debt will increase in relation to the gross domestic product.
The financial framework of the Parti Québécois is distinguished by its relative sobriety. It provides for a substantial but one-off payment of a purchasing power allowance, the doubling of the solidarity tax credit, a partial tax exemption for those aged 60 and over. Public debt is kept on a leash.
If the financial framework of QS is a poem, that of the Conservative Party of Quebec is a thriller full of summary executions. Over a period of five years, the PCQ would slash no less than $32 billion in government spending, notably eliminating business subsidies and capping public spending in order to reduce personal income tax by nearly $30 billion. starve the beast, say Republicans in the United States. It is Quebec social democracy as we know it that would be called into question.