Quebec's budget adds up, the auditor general says, if the province is ready to cut billions

Tashi Farmilo

Quebec's plan to balance its budget is believable, Auditor General Christine Roy reported on August 17, but only if the government is prepared to strip billions of dollars from public spending within a few years. Her verdict comes with a caution: the further out you look, the shakier the plan gets.

Every four years, just before Quebecers vote, the finance minister has to publish an honest accounting of the province's finances, and the auditor general has to grade it. The point is that voters should head to the polls knowing the real state of the treasury, not a campaign-friendly version of it. This year's accounting was written by Finance Minister Eric Girard, in a CAQ government now led by Premier Christine Fréchette.

Roy's team examined the government's projections through the 2028-2029 fiscal year and judged them credible, at least as things stood on July 10. Credible, but not comfortable. The plan rests on solid enough ground this year, but the effort it demands tightens next year, in 2027-2028, and tightens harder the year after.

The pressure comes from a promise written into law: the budget must be balanced by 2029-2030. To keep it, the government is banking on spending that grows far more slowly than it has been. Roy put a price on that restraint. The province would need to find at least $2 billion in savings in 2027-2028, then at least $3 billion the following year. And that second year could get worse, with a further $1.85 billion potentially piled on top, pushing the single-year total to nearly $5 billion. Reaching those figures, Roy says, would mean trimming or cancelling funding for some government programs. Which ones? The report doesn't say.

On the money coming in, Roy is satisfied. The government expects tax revenue to grow more slowly, and with a cooling economy and easing inflation, that is a reasonable bet. The strain is all on the money going out.

Why is the economy cooling? Roy points to two forces. Quebec's population has essentially stopped growing, which quietly drains demand across the province, and global trade has turned unpredictable, rattled in part by American tariffs and conflicts abroad. Slower growth means a thinner stream of tax dollars.

And the hard part does not end once the budget is balanced. The plan calls for yet another round of cuts in 2029-2030, savings that would then have to be held in place year after year, growing harder to sustain as they stack up. Paying down Quebec's debt rests on the same balancing act, a budget kept in balance every year straight through to 2037-2038. The plan also assumes the government will spend far less on building and repairs, even as the province's roads, hospitals and other infrastructure are already showing their age and new projects wait in line.

Roy also graded the report as a document, and mostly liked what she saw was: a clear, relevant, and fair reflection of where Quebec's finances stand. Her one substantive complaint is technical but not trivial. When the budget states its bottom line, whether the province finishes the year in the black or the red, that figure should be worked out the same way it appears in the government's official books, so the two tell the same story.

For all the warnings, Roy's bottom line is that the plan can work. The reason is straightforward: the government holds the levers on enough of its own spending to make these cuts if it chooses to. The targets are within reach. Whether they are reached, and at whose expense, is the question the report hands to the campaign. Quebecers head to the poles on October 5.