Tuesday’s electorally flavored provincial budget translated into one-off measures offering little joys with no future rather than structural measures that would have started the ecological transition of the economy and ensured the transition to the post-pandemic era. Unforeseen tax revenues (12.4 billion) put the Minister of Finance in an enviable position and allowed him to distribute pre-election gifts, but the government thus failed to respond to the major challenges of the day.
Posted at 10:00 a.m.
The $500 Budget
By paying $500 to each adult earning up to $100,000, the government is opting for a temporary and regressive measure. If no one complains about receiving this money, for many it will act as unexpected extra income rather than financial aid. This measure is ineffective because it does not target the populations that are deemed to be the most affected by inflation, i.e. households earning less than $60,000 (or single people earning close to $30,000 ). Rather than offering real support to those who suffer the most from inflation, the government has chosen to offer a small treat to the majority of the population. However, he had a simple tool to properly distribute these sums: the solidarity tax credit.
The government has many other tools to protect the purchasing power of Quebec households against inflation, especially the most vulnerable. One of its powers is to exert upward pressure on long-term incomes, a measure that would be appropriate in the context of inflation that is not caused by an increase in consumption. Measures with lasting effects, such as the enhancement of the refundable tax credit for child assistance and a new increase in the ceiling for the maximum assistance paid to seniors aged 70 and over, have been neglected. However, they would have had the advantage of particularly targeting populations affected by inflation. In the care sector, it is to be feared that the privatization of services planned by the government, if it applies to areas such as home care or accommodation, will further undermine the purchasing power of women. and particularly that of racialized women, since wages are generally lower in the private sector than in the public network.
To act on household expenditure, one way forward could have been to reduce the costs of services controlled by the State (freezing of tuition fees, reduction of childcare costs by completing a subsidized network, tariffs for ‘electricity). A step back from the decision to set hydroelectricity rates based on inflation would have been a simple and effective measure to protect all households. By maintaining this decision, the government is actively participating in strengthening inflation in the coming years, while the cost of electricity distribution in Quebec, which is central to production costs in the province, is artificially inflated by the government’s choices. . This affects the price of Quebecers’ consumption baskets for years to come.
Lack of environmental ambition
It is unfortunate to see that in the context of soaring oil and gasoline prices, measures aimed at reducing the Quebec economy’s dependence on fossil fuels are relegated to the background. Rather than favoring public transit by penalizing solo car use, the government is choosing to spend more than $4.3 billion over 10 years for the widening and development of highways, particularly in suburbs like Brossard and Laval.
In conclusion, although this budget does not announce imminent dark times, the choice of spending does not seem wise given the economic and ecological challenges that Quebec is facing in the immediate future.