Twenty years ago, in February, the Quebec government partially implemented the Act to combat poverty and social exclusion. This law, adopted unanimously by the National Assembly, committed Quebec society and its political institutions to “move towards a Quebec without poverty”.
I want to remind you today of the citizen’s bill and the major mobilization that prompted the government to introduce this law. The citizens’ proposal advocated not moving towards a Quebec without poverty, but laying the foundations for it in ten years, backed by a roadmap. Among the three principles of action that it put forward, it included a principle, the second, capable of providing the budgetary leeway for the realization of this roadmap by prioritizing the improvement of the incomes of the poorest fifth of the population to that of the income of the richest fifth. This principle of action was not included in the law adopted in December 2002. It was crucial.
Twenty years later, a large fraction of the Quebec population, many of whom are single people, still does not have enough to cover their basic needs, a minimum already below the threshold for getting out of poverty. Yet research shows that flexibilities have consistently been there to address this coverage gap.
It would have sufficed to apply the second principle of the citizen’s bill, without loss of standard of living for the rest of society. Instead, the improvement in living standards has generally gone to the most affluent households. Was it more urgent than the lack of coverage of basic needs, which is in reality a loan from society to the life expectancy, and healthy life, of the poorest? No.
More recently, with the pandemic and the multiple crises that have followed, the opportunity could have been there to sustainably prioritize improving incomes at the bottom rather than at the top. It was not the case. The billions of dollars distributed in 2022 by the Quebec government in one-time payments for the cost of living, including to individuals who already have good and very good incomes, will have no effect on the chronic deficit in covering the needs of based in Quebec.
Tax cuts
In 2023, the government is preparing to relieve public finances of some two billion dollars, this time on a recurring basis and reducing the margins of future budgets by the same amount. How ? In tax cuts that will have no effect for the third of taxpayers who do not earn enough to pay, and which will in fact mainly benefit taxpayers with the most means. As well say that we will continue to borrow a possible quality of life missing from a part of the population to improve the disposable income of the richest part.
This kind of aberration, already costly for the poorest, and favoring overconsumption at the top of the income scale, can only become more damaging to life together with the increasing pressure of climate change. The wealth that can count the most for the future of Québec is that of better shared well-being, in terms of income and services.
If the government and the National Assembly want to honor not only the twenty years of the law, but also the citizen mobilization that preceded and succeeded it, and allow Quebec society to benefit from it, the solution is there, with a population well informed of the scale of its income, the intelligence of our common human condition, and priorities to match towards a society rich in everyone.