Economic update: Quebec Opposition parties unsatisfied

Opposition parties in Quebec are not satisfied with Finance Minister Eric Girard’s economic update, which forecasts a deficit of $11 billion.

The Quebec Liberal Party (PLQ) is accusing the Legault government of having “disguised” the real deficit, which is more likely to be $15 billion.

“This government is fooling us,” said Liberal MNA Frédéric Beauchemin.

READ: Quebec revises the tax credit for career extension: finance minister’s economic update

Interim Liberal Leader Marc Tanguay criticized the province’s spending choices, including the “$6.7 billion in election cheques” and the “$1.1 million per door for seniors’ homes.”

“François Legault is being criticized for wasting money like a runaway sailor,” he said.

The PLQ has remained vague about what it would do to straighten out public finances if it ever took power.

“During the election year, we will see the extent of the damage that François Legault will have left us and we will arrive with a financial framework that will hold up and that will allow us to have a plan that will improve services, but also regain control of our public finances,” argued Tanguay.

“Quebec is economically declining and this is the end results of François Legault’s bad administration, bad choices, and his spending without making sure that Quebecers will have the services that are required, the public services.”

‘Austerity’

Québec solidaire (QS), for its part, claims that what the government is proposing in its most recent economic exercise “is starting to look like austerity.”

“Every day, new groups are saying: ‘we are being cut, we are being asked to cut here, to cut there,'” argued MNA Vincent Marissal.

According to him, the growth rates for program spending will be revised downward again, which will undermine the service offer to the population. The QS MNA claims the government “lacks the audacity to increase its revenues.”

“This is not a political debate, it is an arithmetic debate. If you do not have enough money in your budgets for the state missions that you must finance, you will necessarily have to cut somewhere,” he explained.

“The growth of expenses over the next four years, it’s not enough, because usually, and it’s a fact, a wealth document, in fact, we need to have a growth of expenses between 3.5 and four per cent. We are at 2.1, 1.6, 2.8, 2.1. That doesn’t add up. We will need more money or we have to cut.”

‘Frivolous spending’

The Parti Québécois (PQ) claims the Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) is “one of the most spendthrift governments in the history of modern Quebec” that has made lots of “frivolous spending.”

MNA Pascal Paradis denounced “budgetary restriction measures that we are starting to feel everywhere in the network.”

“It is an economic update showing how costly this government is for Quebecers throughout Quebec, including for the middle class,” he said. “We’ve seen this government spending unconsciously in many frivolous spendings.

“The CAQ has created new structures, like the Santé Québec agency, with high-level employees. We are creating more paperwork and more control that everyone complains about. We need to do the opposite. We need to be more efficient to be able to deliver more services to the population.”

The PQ has not closed the door on abolishing Santé Québec if it takes power.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews. With files from Alyssia Rubertucci, CityNews