Charles Milliard: balanced budget and tax cuts for SMEs

PLQ leadership hopeful Charles Milliard is proposing tax cuts for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), as well as a return to a balanced budget if he is elected leader of the Quebec Liberal Party in June and then premier in the 2026 election.

“I want to make Quebec a paradise for entrepreneurship,” said the former president of the Fédération des chambres de commerce du Québec (FCCQ) in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Milliard presented a platform resolutely geared toward SMEs on Wednesday, while pledging not to raise personal taxes.

Coincidentally, his opponent in the race, former federal minister Pablo Rodriguez, had also presented an economic plan the day before, but with more general principles, in the context of the trade war with the United States.

A “Nation of SMEs”

Milliard is proposing specific measures to make the economy “the priority of the PLQ” once again, he writes in his platform, which was developed with the help of former Finance Minister Raymond Bachand.

“It’s all well and good to have big announcements from multinationals, but fundamentally, Quebec is a nation of SMEs, and they are the ones who make our regions live and grow. I want to be the candidate of SMEs and the regions; the two go hand in hand,” Milliard argued in a telephone interview.

A Premier under Milliard would gradually reduce the tax rate for SMEs from 11.5 per cent to 10 per cent. The tax savings would amount to approximately $3,000 for a business with taxable income of $150,000.

He would also offer businesses a basic exemption on the first million dollars of salaries from contributions to the Health Services Fund, over five years, so that payroll taxes are comparable to those of other provinces.

“This is a brake on competitiveness and development,” he said.

With these measures, he hopes, among other things, to encourage business start-ups, since many businesses lack successors, but also to encourage Quebecers to start their own businesses.

“I want people to want to save businesses and create jobs, to fill industrial parks and the main streets of our municipalities.”

He was unable to specify how much these measures would cost the Treasury, but he is counting on an increase in the number of businesses to create more wealth.

Furthermore, he wants to first assess the state of public finances when Minister Eric Girard tables his budget in two weeks: the forecasts are not encouraging after last year’s $11 billion deficit.

Zero Deficit

A Milliard government would also commit to presenting a plan to return to a balanced budget and reduce the debt upon taking office.

The PLQ leadership hopeful is thus responding to the CAQ government’s delay in presenting its own.

Accelerate the return to a balanced budget over four years? Over five years? Milliard is waiting to see the public finances. Should the public fear massive cuts, the “austerity” so decried during the Couillard government’s years?

He is committed to preserving health services and education, as well as culture.

“There are guarantees that are very important to me,” he argued.

“The social pact is broken in Quebec; people are paying for services they don’t receive. The key is not to cut education, health, or cultural services.”

The election for the future leader of the PLQ will take place on June 14.

In addition to Messrs. Milliard and Rodriguez, lawyer Marc Bélanger is in the race, while former mayor Denis Coderre has thrown in the towel.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews