Almost $140 million. This is what it cost taxpayers last year to manage the government’s financial assistance programs for businesses.
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This is an increase of 6.5% compared to the $131.3 million that Quebec spent on this in 2022-2023.
These “fees” paid to Investissement Québec (IQ) are mainly used to manage requests for loans, investments and subsidies submitted by companies, to finance international activities (attraction of foreign investments and stimulation of exports) and to provide business advice to entrepreneurs.
To this must be added the direct costs associated with financial assistance paid by the State, including government borrowing fees, interest rebates granted to businesses and losses resulting from bad debts.
Nearly $4 billion over 10 years
Last fall, The newspaper revealed that these direct costs approached $3.8 billion from 2013 to 2023.
In 2022-2023, the Ministry of the Economy granted 2,170 financial aid to businesses through IQ. Total value: $2.4 billion. The figures for the financial year which ended March 31 will not be known until June.
The 2023-2024 data will be inflated by three major projects in the battery sector announced last year: those of Northvolt, General Motors and Ford, which will benefit from financial aid of several hundred million dollars.