Quebec Finance Minister, Éric Girard, presented his first budget to the National Assembly on Thursday, March 21 since the election of the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government last October.
Clearly pleased with himself, he announced that the last year ended with a surplus of $5.6 billion. Once the $3.1 billion paid into the Generations Fund, Quebec closed the books in the 2018-2019 fiscal year with a surplus of $2.5 billion. The government of François Legault can say thank you to the former Liberal government of Philippe Couillard who cleaned up the public finances, as well as to the additional $1.4 billion this year from the Equalization program.
The budget plan titled Your Priorities, Your Budget, increases expenditures to meet the electoral commitments of the CAQ. For a center-right government, the budget presents measures that tend resolutely to the left, agree observers of the political scene in Quebec.
