WHAT THE PARTIES ARE PROMISING
Coalition Avenir Québec is promising to maintain a balanced budget through fewer spending promises and by finding hundreds of millions of dollars through efficiencies and attrition. Other CAQ commitments include: Keep the debt to GDP ratio below ■ 50 per cent. Pay $10 billion of the debt immediately. ■ That money is currently held in the Generations Fund managed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec. Reduce the school tax — a property ■ tax that is currently just over $0.17 per $100 of assessed value in Montreal — to a little more than $0.10 per $100 of assessed value.
The Quebec Liberal Party is promising to maintain a balanced budget and says increased revenue from economic growth will allow it to pay for extra spending. It would also use a portion of the province’s stabilization reserve. Other Liberal commitments include: Keep the debt to GDP ratio below ■ 50 per cent. Pay off $10 billion of the province’s ■ debt over five years. The Parti Québécois is promising to maintain a balanced budget and says it will cancel a pay increase for doctors. It would also use a portion of the province’s stabilization reserve. Other PQ commitments include: Pay off $10 billion of the province’s ■ debt over five years.
Québec solidaire is promising to maintain a balanced budget and says it would increase taxes on highincome earners and large businesses. It would also use a portion of the province’s stabilization reserve. Other QS commitments include: Stop paying into the Generations ■ Fund and use the money for its green transition, while returns on money currently in the fund would be used to pay down the debt. Cut income taxes for people who ■ make less than $80,000, while those who make more than $250,000 would pay more. It would increase taxes on large businesses and scrap a number of tax credits.
Sources: Party platforms, Synthèse des cadres financiers des partis politiques — Élections 2018 by Antoine Genest-Grégoire, Luc Godbout, Yves St-Maurice et Suzie St-Cerny of the Chair in Taxation and of Public Finance Research at Université de Sherbrooke