It happens so often that it has become commonplace. Infrastructures that are no longer up to standard and that break down when there is no more money to repair them.
This week, it was the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, who lamented that “we can’t do everything at the same time” and who therefore warned Quebec CEGEPs that they will have to reduce their investment budgets, by half in some cases.
So much so that at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal, they gave the directive not to replace toilets that break. So much for the spectacular aspect.
The problem is that all infrastructure needs are becoming more and more pressing. And a maintenance deficit is inevitably the start of a vicious circle that is the opposite of good governance. If only because everything that is postponed will inevitably cost more, often with money that will have to be borrowed.
CEGEPs are, unfortunately, only the tip of the iceberg. Elementary and secondary schools, hospitals, CHSLDs, not to mention roads and water pipes, are in a pitiful state in Quebec.
When you’re unlucky, the lack of maintenance ends in tragedies like the crushing of the Concorde viaduct, louvers falling onto the Ville-Marie highway or a fatal fire in a retirement home that doesn’t have sprinklers.
Other times, it’s simply urgent repairs that must be postponed. Or the addition of infrastructure that has become essential, such as building a new wing or a library. Or upgrading operating rooms in hospitals or infirmaries in retirement homes. Often with expensive new technology.
But in everyday life, governments almost always have the option of “shoveling ahead.”
We know the method. When the deficit becomes too large – and it was 11 billion in the last budget, a record – the Minister of Finance takes the easy way out: he makes cuts in maintenance budgets, even if it means promising the minister concerned that next year he will see his budget increase. Which doesn’t happen often…
At the same time, money is always needed for new projects. Whether it is the Third Link or an Olympic Stadium capable of hosting Taylor Swift concerts. Once again, the maintenance budget for other infrastructure becomes the easiest source of new money.
The result is a hidden crisis in public finances, a quasi-permanent crisis that the next Minister of Finance will “discover” by swearing that he could not have known how dramatic the situation was before coming to power.
In the case of the CAQ government, the situation is made worse by tax cuts which, in hindsight, are becoming difficult to justify.
Thus, the 2023 budget, wanting to respect the promises of the last election campaign, contained tax cuts of nearly 4 billion.
“The tax cut will increase Quebec’s prosperity by stimulating economic growth and the job supply. The adjustments that came into effect very recently are the result of our government’s commitment to improving Quebecers’ disposable income on a recurring basis,” said Finance Minister Eric Girard at the time.
But tax cuts are, unfortunately, only part of the Legault government’s ill-considered promises.
Again this week, the resigning Minister of Economy and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, recalled how much it will cost to decarbonize Quebec and warned that significant increases in electricity rates will be necessary. Response from Premier François Legault: absolutely not! In any case, for as long as he is premier.
There are other CAQ election promises that were presented as solutions to major problems, but which will not be able to become long-term solutions due to lack of money. We are thinking here of the overly expensive seniors’ homes, the Lab-école or the 4-year-old kindergartens.
Seniors’ homes are a good example: a third of the 33 homes promised for 2023 by the Legault government have not been delivered and almost all the others have empty rooms.
Beautiful projects, popular during the election campaign, but which must now be added to the list of abandoned promises or whose scope will have to be considerably reduced. So many icebergs for public finances.
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